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Copyright N°- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Dedicated to 

ily Ittrb 

WILLIAM S. HAWKES 

For whose patient work as amanuensis 
I am deeply indebted 



THE TRAIL TO THE 
WOODS 



BY 

CLARENCE HAWKES 

AUTHOR OF " THE LITTLE FORESTERS," " STORIES OF 
THE GOOD GREEN WOOD " 




NEW YORK .-. CINCINNATI .\ CHICAGO 
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



I LI1BARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 
MAR 2 1907 

^Otpyrtrht Entry . 

8USS A XXC.,N< 



Copyright, 1906, and 1907, 

BY 

CLARENCE HAWKES 



Trail to the Woods 
W. P. 1 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introductory 7 

Whistle wings, the Woodcock 11 

The Tripod Fox 21 

Two Lords of the Forest ....,_... 58 

Tow-Head and the Old He-One ........... 70 

The King or the Clouds 81 

What Puzzled the Doe 91 

An Ill-timed Flight . 104 

David and Goliath 113 

August in the Pasture Lands 119 

Famine in the Wilderness 129 

The Prize of the Creel 142 

A Feline Fury 151 

Two Forest Hymns 167 



INTRODUCTORY 

How enticing to the feet of childhood, especially 
to those of a boy, is the trail that leads to the forest! 

It may be along an old wood road choked with 
grasses and plantain and bordered with brambles 
and weeds, or by a crooked cow path, twisting and 
turning, but the way is that to deep delight, and the 
heart of the child is glad as he journeys. 

the sweet wildwood, with -its incense of pine 
and of balsam, with its ferns, mosses, and lichens, 
with its rustle of leaves, sighing of zephyrs, and its 
sense of infinite peace! How it folds its green arms 
about you, soothing your fevered mind with its own 
deep languor, breathing a benediction sweet as the 
sleep of childhood! 

What couches of plush or velvet are as cool and 
inviting as the moss-covered knolls of the forest, 
where I lay my tired head upon the breast of my 
mother, Nature, and am a little child again, full of 
hope and trust and infinite yearning ? 

1 love to sit in the forest when the first bright 
arrow of sunlight pierces the dome of my temple 
and the birds and the blossoms are glad. This is 
life indeed, to feel the rush of morning down the 
sweet aisles of the woods, where all of its creatures 
rejoice. 



8 

I love to lie at eventide in the slumbrous aisles 
of the ancient forest, when the vesper hymn of every 
feathered creature that can chirp or twitter is at its 
height, and the last rays of the setting sun are kiss- 
ing the tree tops good night. 

How the triumphant passage of this sweet even- 
ing hymn swells the arches of this noble cathedral, 
while from moss and brake come innumerable soft 
whispers, undertones and overtones in the great 
symphony of Nature! 

Some there are who prefer to sing their quaint 
solos, a little apart from the rest, or in some lull of 
the great Te Deum. Such is the mating song of 
the whip-poor-will, with its wild, monotonous re- 
frain. The hoarse cry of the night hawk is also in 
a minor key, while the shrill call of the piping frog 
is a note peculiar to its own strong throat. 

Shy little friends there are, too, that will come fly- 
ing and hopping to see who the great stranger is, and 
why he stripped the hemlock to make him a bed. 
What downy couch or poppy pillow can compare 
with my bed of hemlock, whose very fragrance 
breathes sleep? 

A squirrel barks fiercely at me from his bough 
overhead. If I do not tell him immediately who I 
am and what my business is he will be both angry 
and curious. Then he will run down the trunk of 



the tree, and along the ground towards me, all the 
time scolding and barking. He will finally con- 
clude I am not worth minding, and go away for a 
romp with his fellows. 

A little brown bird comes hopping to see if there 
are any crumbs from my evening meal that she can 
have for her own small supper. 

If you lie very still and are careful not to make 
sudden motions, the birds and squirrels will almost 
eat from your hand. 

What companionship there is in these noble trees! 
How proudly they stand, holding to mother earth 
with their gnarled and knotted feet! Like hu- 
man petitioners they lift their naked palms to 
heaven in the winter time, praying for warmth and 
light. 

What life quivers in their leaves and branches 
to-mght! Speaking a soft language all their own, they 
whisper benedictions to weary man. How the 
landscape would miss them, and how the birds and 
squirrels would mourn if earth were suddenly shorn 
of all its trees! Man, too, would mourn their loss, 
as that of a departed friend. 

In the woods there is no sham or deceit. 
Oaks are oaks and maples are maples. Even the 
little scrub spruce is content to be what it is. 



THE TRAIL TO THE WOODS 



WhISTLEWINGS, THE WOODCOCK 

March had come and gone and the season of 
melting snow and running water was with us. 
There was still some snow to be found in hollows in 
the deep woods, but the open fields were as bare and 
brown as they had been when the first snowflake 
fell. 

No matter where you went, you always heard 
the sound of running water. Maybe it was only a 
slight silver tinkle of a tiny rill slowly feeling its way 
underground to the more ambitious stream. Or 
perhaps it was the roaring of the brook, now swollen 
to a turbulent, foaming river; but it was water, 
water everywhere. 

A boy of some ten summers was standing in the 
dooryard of an old farmhouse, listening to the many- 
tongued whisper of spring. There was no one 
particular thing that conveyed this glad message to 
his ears, only a vague undertone; or perhaps a beat- 
ing in the breast of Nature told him that spring had 
come. Perhaps it was the look of the clouds or the 
feel of the wind, or maybe it was only the running 



12 



water, but the message had been understood, and 
the heart of the boy was glad. Robins would be 
hopping about in the mowing across the road in a 
few days, and the piping frog would peep in the 
meadows, at which sound the sugar buckets would 




be gathered in, for every sugar-maker knows that 
this frog gives warning when the end of the sugar 
season has come. 
Then clear and strong above the silver tinkle, 



13 

the tinkle of running water underground, and the 
whisper of the dank mold, and the sighing of the 
wind in the leafless branches, the boy heard another 
note that thrilled him with a strange sense of the 
new life that was coming, coming with silent, resist- 
less force. 

It was a hoarse, glad cry from the swampy land by 
the brookside ; not a peep nor a pipe, but a cry. So 
much like that of the night hawk, as he sweeps 
through the summer sky on spotted wings, that I 
defy even a woodsman to distinguish the two notes, 
were it not for the season. The night hawk would 
not scour the upper air for flies and millers for three 
months to come, so of course it was not that strange 
bird. But how like his note the cry from the pasture 
land! 

Then a small, birdlike speck arose near the brook 
and went circling up into the sky until it looked no 
larger than a mosquito. Round and round it went, 
up in the dusky air, still uttering its strange spring 
cry, "Beef, beef, beef." When the bird had circled 
about in the upper air for three or four minutes, it 
slowly descended, not in a spiral as it had gone up, 
but taking a zigzag course down a slightly inclined 
plane and alighting almost at the identical spot 
from which it had started. 

What could this queer bird be doing? What 



14 

kind of a bird was it, and what did this strange 
flight into the spring sky mean? The boy went 
into the house, put on an overcoat, and went down 
into the pasture. 

He could hear the hoarse cry above him when he 
reached the pasture land. The bird had taken 
another flight and he had lost sight of it. He 
must wait for its descent. Then he heard a queer 
whistling sound, something like the whir of an 
alarm clock, only it was more a whistle than a whir, 
and then the hoarse, exultant cry, "Beef, beef, 
beef." A second later, just above the boy's head, 
a woodcock whirred down, uttering a very rapid 
chirping song. It skimmed along just above the 
brown weeds and plumped down by the brookside. 

"What a queer performance!" said the boy to 
himself. "I didn't know woodcock ever acted like 
that. I wonder what he is up to." 

Soon the bird rose again, circling about and utter- 
ing his strange cry. 

It was not a song, there was no music in it, but 
the bird seemed to take these flights from mere 
spring exultation. It was probably his one note of 
joy, his only vocal accomplishment. 

There was exultation, too, in the flight. It was 
like a boy drawing his sled up a long hill, and then 
taking the swift plunge downward. Just as the boy 



15 

shouted and swung his cap at the top of the hill, so 
the woodcock uttered his one peculiar note. 

Again and again he took the upward flight, al- 
ways returning to the same spot. 

The boy watched him until the stars came out and 
he could no longer follow the dim form, then he 
went back to the house, but he could still hear the 
hoarse spring cry of the woodcock late into the night. 

For about a week these strange twilight flights of 
the woodcock lasted, and then they suddenly ceased, 
and not a peep, not a note would be heard from his 
long bill until another spring. 

Whether this is one of the woodcock's mating 
maneuvers, or an attempt at song, or only a mad 
flight that he takes from mere exuberance, I do not 
know, but it is one of the strange sights of spring- 
time, and many a hunter who has carried home 
dozens of woodcock in his game bag has never 
seen it. 

To attempt to describe the plumage of the wood- 
cock is a matter as difficult as it would be to describe 
the exquisite loveliness of a fragile flower, soft 
tinted with neutral shades for which there are no 
words. There are types of beauty that elude speech 
even as the will-o'-the-wisp eludes the grasp of 
the human hand. The penciling of the wood- 
cock's plumage is so delicate and the tones are so 



i6 



harmonious and their shades so soft that they baffle 
description. You must not imagine from this that 
the woodcock is a handsome bird, for in shape he 
is very homely, but the delicate penciling of 'his plu- 



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Woodcock 



mage redeems all his faults in the eyes of the nat- 
uralist. 

Upon the top of his head there is a brown satin 
bonnet, and lighter plumage under his throat. Upon 
his back, behind his wings, is a burnt-umber blanket 



17 

or shawl, which he wears proudly. Many of the 
umber feathers are tipped with yellow or slightly 
traced with buff. The under side of the woodcock 
is usually lighter than his back, as here the brown 
becomes snuff color and very light buff. The only 
white on the bird is the under side of the tail. 

There is very little if any difference in the plumage 
of Mr. and Mrs. Woodcock, so that the sex of the 
bird is usually a mystery. I imagine that the male 
woodcock may be a little heavier "than his mate, 
but they vary so in size that one never could tell the 
sex in that way. 

Mr. Woodcock's most conspicuous feature is his 
long bill, some two inches and a half in length, 
which, sticking out on all occasions, gives him a 
pompous air. He is a queer-looking little chap as 
he scurries along just above the tops of the alders, 
his wings whistling like a penny whistle with a pea 
in it. 

The length of my specimen from the top of the 
head to the tip of the tail is nine inches. The height 
from the top of the head to the ground is eight 
inches, and his bill is two and three fourths inches 
long. 

After the spring flights into the twilight sky, al- 
ready described, the boy saw little of the woodcock 
until the open season in September. He might 

TRAIL TO WOODS. 2 



i8 



occasionally flush him in the cornfield just at dusk, 
where he would be boring for worms. Or he might 
run across him while fishing, for the woodcock 
haunts small streams where there is alder and wil • 




Mrs. Woodcock on Her Nest 



low cover and soft loam to bore in, but otherwise he 
is very retiring. 

Mrs. Woodcock is not particular about her nest, 
and almost any depression under the edge of an old 



i9 

log, or beside a stone, will do. Here she lays her 
eggs in May and sits drowsily upon them. The 
young birds are fed on angleworm mush until they 
are large enough to shift for themselves and draw 
their own worms from the loam with their long bills. 

When the hunting season opens, — and it is any- 
where from the first of September to the middle of 
October, varying in different states, — the woodcock's 
troubles begin. 

Then some crisp morning, when the frost is still 
on the grass, he will hear the tinkle of a small bell 
coming in a zigzag manner down the watercourse. 
This is a setter or pointer working the cover for Mr. 
Woodcock. The bell is tied to the dog's collar, in 
order that the hunters may not lose track of him in 
the thick cover, and may know when he has stopped 
to point, even if he is out of sight. 

Finally the tinkle of the little bell comes so near 
that it frightens Mr. Woodcock, and he rises on 
whistling wings. 

Then a deafening roar, new to his ears, breaks the 
silence of the autumn, and the woodcock is lucky if 
he does not feel the sting of small pellets. 

The woodcock's departure from this to warmer 
climes is rarely witnessed, for he leaves in the dark- 
ness, flying twenty or thirty miles each night, and 
thus working his way gradually to the south. One 



20 

little glimpse at the woodcock's fleeting wings a 
small boy got one autumn night, as he was going 
home from a neighbor's. 

The night was quite dark, and the boy hugged his 
lantern close, feeling that it was a sort of charm that 
kept off bugaboos and hobgoblins. 

It was about the middle of November, and the air 
was clear and crisp. By the roadside was a fringe of 
witch-hazel, and its delicious wild fragrance filled 
the night with subtle sweetness. 

Suddenly the boy heard a low, tremulous, whis- 
tling sound, and a woodcock whirred through the 
darkness a few feet above his head. The boy 
could see his brown coat and long bill by the light 
of the lantern; besides, there was no mistaking the 
sound of his wings, once it could be distinguished. 
Then another woodcock followed the first, and then 
a long procession of the birds, sometimes flying 
singly, a rod or so apart, and sometimes two or 
three in a bunch. 

The boy stood perfectly still and listened, holding 
his lantern up so that he might see the woodcock 
as they passed. For at least two minutes the pro- 
cession kept up a steady whistle of wings, till the last 
bird whirred by into the gloom, and the sound of his 
wings died away. It was a large colony of wood- 
cock taking their nocturnal flight southward. 



21 

The woodcock is sometimes indiscriminately 
called a snipe. Many characteristics that he has in 
common with the snipe have given rise to various 
names that are applied to him, in which the term 
snipe is used, — such as blind snipe, mud snipe, 
whistling snipe, jack snipe, and the like. But the 
woodcock is no more a snipe than he is a sandpiper, 
although he belongs to the same genus and has 
some characteristics in common with both these 
birds. 

But his weight, shape, and color all declare him to 
be a distinct species, and entitled to a name and 
place of his own. His cry of alarm, which he 
rarely utters, — "Beef, beef," is also quite different 
from the "Scape, scape," of the Wilson Snipe. 

The Tripod Fox 

It was a clear crisp morning in October, with 
just chill enough in the air to set the blood tingling 
and to whet the appetite. There had been a hard 
frost the night before, and along the little water 
courses and in other low places there was a white 
lacework of frost suggestive of what the cold would 
do a few weeks later. 

Reynard, the red fox, was following a small stream 
up the wind, looking for his breakfast. This was 



22 

his favorite way of hunting, for it gave him the 
advantage both of seeing and smelling, so if the wind 
had been in the opposite direction he would have 
hunted down stream instead of up. 

His appetite was very keen this morning, and thus 
far he had merely sharpened it with a field mouse. 
By the side of an old log he had got the scent, and 
after poking about under the log with his paw he 
had frightened the little creature out into his open 
mouth. 

If you had told Reynard that it was a fine thing 
to have a good appetite, he might have replied sar- 
castically that it depended on how plentiful game 
was and what luck one had in hunting. 

A heavy flight of woodcock had come in the night 
before from the north, and every now and then he 
flushed one of the birds. This made his hunting 
interesting, even if there was little likelihood that 
he could surprise another as he had done the week 
before. This sleepy old woodcock had been boring 
for angleworms in the loam, and had just located 
one when Reynard happened along. The bird had 
thrust his bill into the mud until the mushy loam 
came up to his eyes, and so he did not see the fox 
behind him. Just as he pulled the worm up, the 
fox sprang. The worm escaped, but it was quite 
otherwise with the woodcock. 



23 



Once this morning the wary fox had got a slight 
whiff of man scent at a stony place in the brook. 
The scent was faint, and after making a thorough 
examination he had concluded that it was old, and 
had gone on hunting, merely crossing to the other 




The Worm Escap 



side of the brook as a precaution that was easily 
taken. 

Presently he got a good whiff of game scent from 
up stream, and stealthily advanced upon it. His 
nostrils were extended, his hungry yellow eyes 
ablaze, and his whole frame quivering with excite- 



2 4 

ment. As he drew nearer he crouched low to the 
ground, going almost upon his belly. Then the 
wind freshened and he got a whiff of bird scent 
so strong that there was no mistaking it. 

A few more crouching, creeping steps brought 




A Sparrow Hanging 



the fox out into a small open spot, where the brook 
broadened into a pool five or six feet across. There, 
just over the middle of the pool, a foot or so above 
the water, was a sparrow hanging head down and 
quite motionless. 

Reynard's first impulse was to spring, but as the 



25 

bird neither fluttered nor moved this impulse was 
checked, and he fell to considering. 

It was very queer that a bird could sustain itself 
in mid air without using its wings. It also was not 
afraid of him. This, too, was strange. Then the 
fox noticed a small straight twig running from the 
bird's feet up into the branches of the tree that over- 
hung the brook. 

Was the bird holding to this, or was the twig hold- 
ing the bird ? This last seemed more likely, for the 
bird must be dead, as it neither fluttered nor chirped. 

It was a very handy breakfast, almost providential, 
in fact, but there was something about it that the 
fox did not like. He was accustomed to working 
for his board, and having the meal thus set before 
him without price seemed queer. 

Then he sniffed the bank up and down the little 
stream for thirty feet. There seemed to be no man 
scent. He crossed over and tried the other side. 
This, too, was untainted. After all, perhaps it was 
all right. 

Once he thought he got a suggestion of man scent 
from a broken twig, but finally concluded that it 
was the taint he had got further down the brook 
that still lingered in his nostrils. 

The bird was too far out over the water for him to 
reach it from shore, but there was a convenient stone, 



26 

covered with a bit of moss, half way between him 
and his breakfast. This would make good footing. 
A fox never wets his feet if he can help it, and he 
would use this stepping-stone. 

He paused a moment with one paw uplifted as he 
reached for the bird. It was all too strangely easy. 
He would have felt better about it if the bird had 
fluttered. Then he would have sprung upon it and 
torn it to bits without hesitation. 

Pooh! what was the use of questioning the good 
fortune that had made his breakfast come easy for 
once, so he stepped boldly out upon the moss. 

Then something jumped from out the water and 
caught his leg just above the first joint so quickly 
that he knew not how it was done. With a lightning 
spring he bounded backwards, bringing a long 
snakelike thing out of the brook after him and a 
queer looking clam upon his paw. 

Whe-e-e-w! How it bit! He snapped at it, and 
shook his paw, but it still clung. Then he bit at it 
furiously. It did not bite back, but it was so hard 
that it hurt his teeth, which seemed to make no 
impression upon it. The bones of a rabbit or par- 
tridge would have been ground to powder by those 
strong jaws, but this strange clam did not seem to 
mind them. But he would soon shake it off, and he 
spun round and round, snapping and snarling, even 



27 

crossing to the other side of the brook. But the 
snakelike thing followed him, and the clam bit 
harder and harder. He would see what effect 
water had on it; perhaps he could drown it. He 
held the clam under water for a minute or two, but 
it still nipped him, and the snakelike thing followed 
as before. 

Perhaps if he could kill this noisy thing that rat- 
tled after him everywhere he went, the clam would 
let go his paw, so he attacked the chain furiously, 
but it was as hard as ever and the clam seemed only 
to mock him. 

Then he lay down and licked his throbbing paw, 
and wondered vaguely how it had happened. He 
was always careful, but this evidently was some 
strange device to kill him. 

True, there had been no man scent, but Reynard, 
the red fox, did not know that the trapper had 
walked in the brook for several rods to the spot where 
he had set the trap, and that he had not stepped out 
of the water all the while he was doing it; that 
he had held the bird in a new pocket handkerchief 
while he slipped the noose over its feet, so as to 
leave no scent, and had returned the same way. So 
whatever scent was left in setting the trap, the brook 
had carried down stream. 

Reynard had discovered the point where the 



28 

trapper had left the brook, but it was so far away 
from the trap and the scent was so faint that he had 
failed to connect the two. Besides, moss usually 
grew on stones in the brook, and the whole arrange- 
ment fitted together nicely. 

Then a twig snapped in the bushes, and a wild 
terror seized Reynard. It was some one connected 
with this contrivance who was coming to do him 
further harm. He cowered upon the ground and 
lay very still. It was only a rabbit hopping through 
the bushes. Ordinarily he would have crept 
stealthily after him, but now his own troubles en- 
grossed his entire attention. 

At each rustle of the wind in the leaves his fears 
increased. The " rat-a-tat" of a woodpecker in a 
tree near by made him jump, but now his paw no 
longer pained him, for it was getting numb. It 
really felt as though he had no leg below the first 
joint. 

He wriggled and twisted, bit and tore; lay upon 
the ground and shook his paw, sprang suddenly into 
the air, crossed from one side of the brook to the 
other, and tried every stratagem known to fox cun- 
ning, but all to no purpose, for the ugly clam still 
held his paw with a grip like death. 

Foam dripped from his lips, and his eyes grew 
wild and bloodshot. His breath came hard and 



2 9 

fast, while in his heart fear contended with sullen 
rage for mastery. He was very thirsty, but did not 
dare drink in the brook, for he thought it would do 
him some harm. The fields and woods had seemed 
so free and wild an hour before, and now they were 
filled with terror. This bit of a demon on his paw 
had changed everything. 

After one of these wild plunges, in which he shook 
himself, rolled and tumbled, snapped and snarled, 
he bit at his paw in sheer desperation. It did not 
hurt so much as he had expected, and a new 
idea came to him. If he could not get his paw 
from the strange creature's mouth, he might leave 
the part it had hold of, and escape on three legs. 

He lay down again for a moment, to get back 
his wind and courage, and then with a few sharp 
crunches of his jaws severed the limb, and was 
free, minus the torn and bleeding forepaw in the 
trap. Free to hop off on three legs into the woods. 
But he left a bloody trail on ferns and leaves, and 
many a tuft of moss was painted crimson. 

It would never do to bleed like this. Already he 
was getting weak, so he made his way cautiously to 
a spring that he knew of near by. Cold water was 
good to stop bleeding and to draw out fever and 
pain. He had learned this the summer before when 
he had stuck a bramble in his foot. So he dipped 



3° 

his paw in the spring, taking care this time not to 
step on any mossy stones. 

When the cold water had partially stopped the 
bleeding and relieved the pain a little, he went away 
to look for a balsam tree, to apply a favorite remedy 
that his mother had made use of when he was a 
young fox, and had cut his face on swale grass. 

He soon found the desired tree, and broke open 
several of the blisters with his teeth. The day was 
becoming warm by this time, the sun being two or 
three hours high, and the balsam flowed freely. 
This he lapped up with his tongue and applied to 
the ragged stump. The balsam was very sticky, 
and held the ragged ends of skin over the broken 
bone, which luckily had snapped at the joint, leav- 
ing a fairly smooth end. 

Besides sticking down the skin over the end of 
bone, the balsam helped to check the bleeding. In 
half an hour's time he had stopped the blood ahd 
made a very respectable stump with these simple 
remedies. A man with all his knowledge of band- 
ages and splints might have bled to death in the same 
predicament. 

Then he went away into the deep woods, to let 
Nature do the rest. He found a scrub spruce with 
low-hanging branches; this would screen him from 
curious eyes while he took a nap. He crawled in 



3i 

under the friendly branches, and lay down to sleep. 
For a long time the mutilated stump throbbed so 
that he could not rest, but he bore it grimly with set 
teeth, and finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. 

When he awoke it was night. The stars were 
shining brightly above him. He could see them 
winking and blinking through the tree tops, and the 
night wind was sighing softly in the pines. 

He was ravenously hungry, and his leg throbbed 
with renewed energy. He was also lame in every 
joint from the wrenching that he had got in the trap. 

There seemed to be no way of gratifying his appe- 
tite, for his lameness would not permit of his hunt- 
ing. Under other circumstances he would have 
crossed the mountain and gone into the meadow to 
hunt mice on so bright a night, but now this was 
out of the question. 

But his aching member and his hunger would not 
let him rest, and he hobbled painfully about hoping 
to find food in some unexpected manner. Presently 
he heard a rustling in the underbrush, and two 
other foxes crept cautiously out into the moonlight, 
coming directly towards him. Reynard at once rec- 
ognized them as his litter brother and sister whom 
he had not seen for two days. 

How lucky it was they had appeared at this time! 
Here was aid at last. 



32 

Reynard greeted his brother and sister with a 
short bark expressive of joy and surprise, and they 
came quickly to him, but drew back uncertain at 
the sight of his mutilated leg. The three-legged 
fox held up his wounded member imploringly, lick- 
ing it, that they might see his suffering. But at the 
sight, his own brother and sister drew back and 
snarled at him. He was different from what he 
had been before. He was maimed and no longer 
one of them. He was a cripple, an outcast, and 
not worthy of their friendship. 

Then the wounded fox was treated to a most cruel 
illustration of the barbaric law of the survival of 
the fittest, which is carried out so rigorously in the 
woods, and which at once debars maimed and crip- 
pled animals from the rights and privileges of their 
kind. His own litter brother and sister set upon 
him furiously, snapping and biting at his wounded 
limb, and showing him plainly that henceforth they 
would recognize him only as an outcast. 

At first great astonishment possessed the fox, then 
outraged fury, and he backed up against a tree and 
defended himself in a manner that made his assail- 
ants draw away to a respectful distance. He was 
really much larger than they, and had been some- 
thing of a bully before his accident, but clearly his 
day had passed. 



33 

From that time on he was known to both man and 
beast as the three-legged fox, an outcast and a 
vagrant, hated and tormented by his own family, 
and hunted and dogged by men. 

In time he learned to travel very well on three 
legs, but he never could conceal his identity. If any 
boy on his way to school saw a ragged fox track he 
would at once tell the other boys that the tripod fox 
had crossed the night before up in Jenkins's pas- 
ture. If the snow was soft one of the paw prints 
was always deeper than the others, and if it was 
very deep you could see where the stump dragged 
in the snow. 

Hunters were glad to find this ragged fox track 
in fresh snow, for they always felt sure that their 
hound would catch the lame fox within an hour 
after starting him. Many stories were told by fox 
hunters of how they " almost bagged" the tripod 
fox, but he wore his hide just the same, and defied 
them to the end of the chapter. 

He never could excel in the long, hard chase, for 
his lameness prevented that, so his wits had to make 
up what he lacked in fleetness. There were many 
kinds of hunting, too, that he had to forego, but he 
developed a cunning and resourcefulness that were 
not matched by any other fox in the county. 

His method was usually the ambush, or still hunt, 

TRAIL TO WOODS. 3 



34 

and he rarely stalked his game as other foxes did. 
His hunting took patience and long waiting, but he 
usually got his game. 

He would lie for hours in some hollow beside a 
woodland path where the autumn winds had piled 
up leaves until they were deep enough to cover him, 
his nose and eyes just showing, so he could see and 
not be seen. You might have watched the pile of 
leaves, that so well matched his own reddish yellow 
coat, and not see them move for an hour, but let 
some luckless rabbit or squirrel come jumping along 
the path and the fox would spring from the pile like 
a flash and have his prey before it was aware. 

At other times he would lie behind an old log for 
an entire afternoon watching the squirrels playing 
in the trees and spying out where they hid their 
mast. If he saw that a squirrel was hiding his store 
under the roots of a tree, he would mark the spot in 
his mind, and take his place just one spring from the 
hole, behind the trunk. There he would stand like a 
statue, his hungry yellow eyes glued upon the hole. 
He never shifted his position or seemed to get 
cramped, for he knew better than you or I do that 
a motionless object in the woods is very hard to 
discover. And when the long watched for game 
appeared, he rarely missed it. In the same way he 
had spied out a cock partridge's drumming log, and 



35 

by lying close under one side of it where it was 
rotten, he surprised this most wary of birds and 
pinioned him before he could move a wing. 




Partridge Drumming 



Mice hunting he also carried on successfully, but 
his specialty was thieving about farmhouses, where 
great caution had to be exercised, and only a fox with 
wits could go continuously and keep his brush. 



36 

There he had not only to guard against traps but 
also against the farm dog. And as he was not swift 
of foot, he would fare badly in a race for life. This 
being the case, he usually reconnoitered the premises 
to be robbed, and discovered whether there was a 
dog upon the place. If he found that it was guarded 
in that way, he would look for a farmhouse that had 
no dog. 

On one occasion he misjudged the premises and 
was surprised in the very act of robbing a hencoop, 
by the canine protector of the place. It was lucky 
for him that the dog was a coward, and retreated 
with a gashed face before the battle had really 
begun, or his coat might have suffered. 

I have discussed the point with many old fox 
hunters, and I cannot discover that a dog was ever 
known to draw first blood in a fight with a fox. The 
fox is so much quicker and more subtle than the 
domestic animal that he always gets that advan- 
tage. I do not think that a dog ever killed a fox 
without carrying a scar or two by which to remember 
the battle. Of course, a fox when cornered is no 
match for a gritty dog, but he is game from the quiv- 
ering tip of his nose to the end of his bushy tail. 

Every spring the meadows at the eastern side of 
the mountain where the tripod fox made his head- 
quarters were covered with water. The river at the 



37 

foot of the mountain being swollen, Reynard would 
indulge in his most exciting sport, which was duck 
hunting. 

He would sit upon a convenient point about 
twenty rods up the side of the mountain, and watch 
the waters below, until he was able to mark down 
some ducks in a position that suited his purpose. 
He wanted them near shore, preferably where some 
point or bush would cover his approach. Then he 
w r ould slip swiftly down the mountain side and enter 
the water twenty rods or so from the game. 

If he could keep a floating tree or some other 
object between himself and the feeding ducks so 
much the better. Otherwise he would have to swim 
very slowly, with just the point of his nose showing 
above the water. He had to be careful not to make 
ripples, for the ducks were wary. When he had 
reached the bush or point as near as he could get, 
while using the greatest caution he would stop a 
few seconds to draw a deep breath, for the final swim 
took good lung power, and he might have to hold 
his nose entirely under water for the last two or 
three rods. 

The ducks were usually busy feeding, diving and 
bobbing about, so that when one of their number 
suddenly went under, they thought nothing of it if 
there was no splash or squawk, and Reynard took 



38 

care that there should not be. Once under water he 
crushed the life out of his victim with a powerful 
crunch of his jaws and went noiselessly away to the 
point to hide the first victim and return for another. 
He rarely got the second duck, but it was worth the 
attempt, for the tripod fox was a hunter and delighted 
in the chase. 

Besides losing his right forepaw in the trap the 
tripod fox had two other trying experiences during 
this eventful autumn, both of which tended to con- 
firm him in the cynicism that was rapidly growing 
upon him. The first of these events was as follows: 

One evening just at dusk Reynard came to a 
spring which was his favorite drinking place. The 
water was always cold and fresh, and never tasted 
swampy, as some springs did. 

He was hungry as well as thirsty. The rabbit 
plague had done its deadly work among the cotton- 
tails the year before, and they would not be very 
plentiful again until the second or third year after 
the plague. Reynard did not know this, but he 
knew that rabbits were scarce, and that it was not 
so easy hunting them as it would be after the deep 
snows came. 

This evening he found both meat and drink at the 
spring, for there were several generous pieces of 
meat strewn about, but his suspicions were at once 



39 

aroused. The meat had not been there the night 
before, and it was quite strong of man scent. He 
could also see where each piece had been slit, and 
here the scent was strongest. There was also 
another rank odor at each of the slits. 

With his trap experience so fresh in his mind he 
would have passed the alluring feast by had he not 
been so hungry. For a while he considered, nosing 
the pieces of meat about. Then he selected the one 
which had the least taint about it and ate it, then 
went quickly away as though he dared not trust 
himself longer near the meat. 

He had no sooner swallowed the tempting bit 
than he was filled with misgivings. There did not 
seem to be any immediate injury from it, but he 
felt instinctively that some subtle danger lurked 
near anything that had man scent about it. 

He knew of a pungent plant that would cause him 
to throw up the meat if he could only find some of it, 
but he searched the woods in vain. He could find 
it any day when he did not want it, but now it 
seemed to have suddenly disappeared. By this time 
an hour had elapsed since he had eaten the meat, 
and he began to feel ill. It was burning him up 
and making him dizzy. He then knew that his 
cunning enemy man had again got him in his 
clutches. 



40 

He rushed hurriedly to the brook and drank until 
he could drink no more. But his thirst could not 
be satisfied, and the deadly sickness grew upon 
him. 

Then by some good fortune or inspiration he 
thought of a very old remedy, and began eating grass 
ravenously. The relief was not immediate, but this 
simple emetic took effect in half an hour, although 
enough of the poison had got into his system to 
make him thoroughly ill for the rest of the day, 
which he spent quietly lying under a bush. 

But this was one more of the hard lessons he was 
learning by experience. Never again would he touch 
meat with man scent upon it, — not even if he 
starved. 

The other experience from which he learned new 
caution was not so much his fault, and merely one 
of those accidents that frequently enter into the 
best ordered life of a fox. 

He was crossing a laurel swamp one morning. 
The snows had come, and bushes and boughs were 
bending under their load. He was following a 
rabbit path which was the rabbits' principal high- 
way through the swamp, their main traveled road, 
as one might say, with lesser thoroughfares branch- 
ing out in every direction. Reynard was quite 
absorbed in the rabbit scent, which was fresh, and 



41 

was not exercising his usual precaution, for not even 
a fox can be interested in several things at a time. 

Presently he got a whiff of man scent that made 
his nerves start, but he kept very quiet. The scent 
came to him from down the wind, so the object 
scented must be very near. Then the woods re- 
sounded with a roar that echoed again and again, 
and a score of hornets stung the tripod fox in as 
many places. There was no need of keeping quiet 
any longer when such noises were abroad, and the 
fox broke cover, running for his life. 

Again the roar resounded through the woods, and 
again the hornets stung him, but not so freely as be- 
fore. Over and under bushes he sprang, running 
and jumping in a manner that would have done 
credit to a four-legged fox, and soon left the swamps 
far behind, but he did not stop running until he 
reached a ledge near the mountain top, where he 
had his home. 

This was his first experience with the deadly 
thunder stick, man's long arm with which he reaches 
out for the wild things that he cannot catch in any 
other way. The hornet stings in his coat continued 
to smart for the rest of the day, and his hide was 
sore for some time, but the tripod fox felt that he 
was lucky to escape even with this inconvenience 
and so did not mind. 



42 

Later on in the day he heard a strange wild noise 
like the cry of some animal down in the laurel swamp, 
and the same ominous roar, but it was faint and far 
away. The following year he learned that the weird 
sounds were the cry of an animal with which man- 
chased both foxes and rabbits, and that the resound- 
ing roar was a man's voice, with which he said to 
wild creatures, "Stop! I want your hide. It does 
not belong to you, it is mine." 

The hunter had spoken just as loudly to the tri- 
pod fox on this occasion as he ever spoke, but the 
shot had been intended for rabbits instead of foxes, 
and as this ammunition was not large enough to 
break bones or to pierce his vitals, Reynard had 
escaped with a score of little pellets in his coat. Had 
the gun been loaded with number four shot instead 
of sevens, the eventful life of the tripod fox would 
probably have been cut short at that time, and the 
fox club in the village beyond the river would have 
been saved many a futile chase. 

The three-legged fox was always at a disadvan- 
tage in a straight away race for life, and this he never 
attempted, unless there was a crust on the snow just 
hard enough to bear him and let the hounds through. 

No one who has not seen Reynard divested of his 
fine reddish-yellow overcoat knows what a slight 
fellow he is. The leanest greyhound is fat com- 



43 

pared with him. His legs are no bigger than those 
of a cat, while his body at the greatest girth is not 
much larger around than a man's forearm. Seeing 
him with his coat on, the novice estimates the fox's 
weight from twenty to thirty pounds, while in reality 
it ranges from eight to twelve pounds. 

The closest call that the tripod fox ever had, and 
one that was long talked of by the hunting club, 
happened in this way. 

There was a heavy snow on the ground, and the 
three-legged fox was down in the valley prowling 
about some corn stacks that had been left out by 
a shiftless farmer. He had found plenty of mice 
there all the fall, and now he wanted one for break- 
fast. 

The club were out too, this morning, and the pack 
took his track at the foot of the mountain and came 
on across the field at full cry. The cunning fellow 
usually would have put for the mountain and taken 
refuge in one of half a dozen ledges that he had 
selected carefully during his residence there, — ledges 
whence he could not be dug out and where he would 
be comparatively safe. But to-day the pack was 
between him and the mountain, and he was gradu- 
ally pressed farther and farther from his stronghold. 

The snow was deep and moist, making his coat 
heavy and his one forepaw slumped badly. He 



44 

was getting winded, and all the time the pack was 
gaining on him. At last he reached some spruces, 
covering an acre or two of pasture. He might snarl 
the track a bit here, and gain a few rods, so he gave 
some of his most scientific twists, and came out on 
the other side just as the pack entered, thirty rods 
behind him. 

He stopped a moment to consider. There was 
safety in the mountain a mile away. He could 
never reach it in this snow without being caught. 
Then there was a noise in the road, and he slunk 
back behind a bush, but all the time the cries of the 
hounds came nearer. 

While he stood uncertain and desperate, a log team 
passed in the road, within a rod or two of him. This 
was the noise he had heard. There was one log at 
the bottom of the load longer than the rest, making 
just such a seat as boys like to ride to school on 
without having the driver, who is perched high on 
the load at the front, know they are there. 

The desperate fox saw his chance and took it. 

He sprang into the road behind the team and 
three or four of his three-legged jumps landed him on 
the long log. There he crouched, his reddish coat 
matching the color of the spruce log nicely. 

Just as the pack of hounds broke into the open the 
log team rounded a bend in the road, and a moment 



45 



later the air was filled with perplexed howls from 
the baffled pack. 

A small boy, dinner pail in hand, was trudging to 
school, and he came into the road behind the log 
team from a cross path. He saw what he thought 





-. 



The Escape of the Fox 

to be a collie dog riding upon the log at the back of 
the load. Almost at the same instant the supposed 
dog raised his head and saw the boy. Then he 
jumped lightly off and disappeared in the bushes, 
and the boy saw that the supposed collie was a fox. 
It was not until his fifth year that the tripod fox 



46 

met Fuzzy, the one oasis in his desert life. Fuzzy 
was three years old, and she alone of all his kindred 
seemed to overlook his infirmity. Presently four 
little kit foxes made their appearance, and the tripod 
fox was the proudest sire for many miles around. 
He made longer excursions into the valley than ever 
he had before, for he had to hunt for the family, 
and many a henhouse paid tribute to the little fox 
family up in the mountain. 

One of the young foxes died during its kittenhood, 
but the rest grew finely and were well favored young 
foxes when the first frosts toughened their hides and 
made them fit for the fox club's taking. 

The annual fox hunt, which was to be followed by 
a banquet in the evening, took place about the first 
of November. A horseman with a bugle had awak- 
ened the fox hunters at four A. m., and the men and 
the pack were off at five. 

Fuzzy and the youngsters had gone into the 
meadows to look for quail that morning at about 
three o'clock. They had occasionally found a bevy 
of them where the quail had spent the night, sleeping 
in a bunch, and the foxes had made several good 
meals this autumn in that way. 

So they trailed the quail, but the pack trailed them, 
and at five-thirty the hounds were in full cry. 

In some w r ay the young foxes got separated from 



47 

their mother, and ran recklessly about without any 
other purpose than to keep out of reach of the noisy 
pack. As the club said, "They were just old 
enough to play nicely." 

By seven o'clock the pelts of two of them were 
dangling from the pockets of lucky hunters, and the 
third fox, who had also been shot at, bolted, and the 
hounds went out of hearing. They came back after 
about two hours, for a pack will not follow a fox as 
far straight across country as a single hound. But 
the young fox, who had been badly scared, was 
never seen in that part of the country again. 

Once more the tripod fox felt himself an Ish- 
maelite in the land of his fathers, and something of 
his old moroseness came back to him. But still he 
had Fuzzy, and she alone was the joy of his lonely 
life. December and January crawled by. It was 
a very hard winter, and the fox family had all they 
could do to keep down the pangs of hunger that 
gnawed at their vitals. Rabbits were scarce, and 
there were no sudden thaws and freezes to catch 
partridge under the snow crust, where the foxes 
could find and dig them out. 

They did occasionally get one that had plunged 
under the soft snow to keep warm, some bitter night, 
but one partridge would not satisfy a couple of hun- 
gry foxes long. 



48 

They were finally obliged to go to neighboring 
farmhouses more frequently than they liked to. 
There they would occasionally find a dead hen that 
had been thrown upon a compost heap, or a calf 
that had been dragged into the lots for the crows 
and foxes. 

About this time came the January thaw, which 
was late, and after it a hard freeze and a fine crust. 

One morning Fuzzy went into the meadows to 
feast upon a dead horse. The fox club had drawn 
the dead horse into the meadows as a decoy, where 
they could start a fox without so much trouble as 
they would otherwise have to take. The club got 
out early the same morning that Fuzzy made her 
trip to the dead horse, and the pack at once took 
her track. Seven members of the fox club were 
out, and they patrolled the meadows thoroughly, 
each posted at some likely spot for a fox to cross. 

It was a cold, crisp morning, and each hunter 
had stamped out a spot two or three feet square to 
stand in, and kicked the snow off his feet to keep 
them from getting cold. The men wore fur caps 
and gloves and carried shotguns. They all waited 
impatiently for the cry of the pack, and whenever 
it came near a waiting hunter he would draw the 
glove from his right hand and cock his gun. 

Half way back to the mountain Fuzzy ran upon 



49 

one of the hunters, and had a close shave for her 
life. Her coming had not been announced by the 
pack, and the sportsman was not ready for her. 
His glove fumbled the trigger, and as the fox was 
on low ground he shot over her, but the roar of 
the gun rolled across the meadows and echoed from 
hilltop to hilltop. The tripod fox heard it on the 
mountain and was anxious, so he came out at the 
top of a cliff under a small spruce to watch and listen. 

Presently he heard the pack in full cry and saw 
a small yellow speck coming straight for the moun- 
tain about half a mile away. It was Fuzzy. She 
was running well, and the pack was fifty rods be- 
hind. She would make the mountain nicely, if no 
unseen hunter intervened. 

The tripod fox strained every nerve to watch the 
race for life of his mate. The pack did not gain 
upon her, and he felt sure that she would make it. 
It was fine running for both dog and fox, and the 
pack swept across the meadows like the wind. 

Fuzzy was now within a quarter of a mile of the 
foot of the mountain. Her mate from his hiding- 
place under the spruce saw nothing but clear fields 
before her and smiled broadly at the thought of her 
triumph. Then he saw a team driving rapidly 
across the meadows, the horses going at a gallop. 
On the seat beside the driver was a tall, gaunt hound 

TRAIL TO WOODS. A 



5o 

that the tripod fox did not remember to have seen 
before. 

The team was driving to head off the paek where 
it would cross the road forty rods from the foot of 
the mountain. The man was holding the hound 
by the collar, and the dog was straining and tugging 
to get free. Then the pack crossed the road just 
ahead of the team, and the man let go the hound. 
With great bounds that ate up distance like an ex- 
press train he came after the pack, overtook it, and 
drew nearer and nearer to the flying fox. The 
tripod fox saw the new danger, and gritted his 
teeth and strained his sight, that no movement 
might escape him. 

Fuzzy redoubled her efforts and drew away from 
the pack, but the gaunt hound closed rapidly in upon 
her. Only four or five rods now separated them. 
Twice Fuzzy doubled and the gaunt monster ran 
by her, but the third time he reached over and closed 
his lank jaws upon her back and threw her over 
backwards, where she lay limp upon the snow. 
She did not rise again, for her back had been broken 
as though it had been a reed. 

The hound's owner came up just in time to save 
the fox pelt from the pack that came thundering on 
to congratulate the greyhound upon his quick run 
and brilliant finish. 



Si 

All were glad except the red fox on the mountain, 
who went sullenly back to his lonely den. 

Four times during the coming week the tripod fox 
witnessed, the same tragedy in the valley below, — 
the pack in full cry, the flying fox, and the hideous 




Fuzzy's Last Run 

monster that came in at the finish and picked up 
the fox with ease. 

The hunter who carried the tall hound with him 
lived at the end of the bridge over the river. The 
watching fox saw them go there each day after 
the hunt. It was something to know where his 



52 

enemy lived, for he could be on the lookout for 
him. 

About the last of February the tripod fox found 
some small pieces of meat strewn about a spring. 
It was very strong of man scent, and he knew it 
would not be good for him to eat it. He had never 
forgotten the lesson of the meat that made him sick. 
But after considering for a while he carefully took 
two of the largest pieces and trotted off through the 
dark. * 

He skirted the river until he came to the long dark 
tunnel or bridge the hound's owner always used in 
crossing. Ordinarily he would not have dreamed 
of crossing in this way, and would have gone over on 
the ice, but to-night he was filled with a reckless dar- 
ing and a wild exultation that feared nothing. 

He trotted across the bridge to the house at the 
farther end where the great hound lived. He had 
reconnoitered the premises a few nights before when 
the moon was up, and knew the lay of the land. 
He even knew where his enemy slept. 

There was a little house under an open shed. It 
had a swing door, and a chain rattled when the 
hound moved. The wary fox had found out all 
this by standing upon the wall across the road and 
giving a couple of sharp barks. The door in the 
little house had suddenly been pushed up, and the 



53 

head of the lank hound thrust out, while the chain 
rattled. This was all the fox wanted to know, so he 
had gone quietly away. 

To-night he crept carefully into the shed and laid 
the two pieces of meat that he had carried so gingerly, 
as near the dog house as he dared to. He went so 
near that he could even hear his enemy breathing. 
He was quite aware of the risk he ran, but did not 
care. It would be as well to die in a hazardous 
enterprise as to be picked up on the meadows some 
morning where there was no chance for life. 

When he had placed the meat by the door of the 
kennel, he went back into the road and gave two 
or three sharp barks as he had done before. He 
heard the door of the little house come up with 
a bang and the chain rattle, but it was so dark that 
he could not see anything of his enemy. He had 
done all he could, and so trotted quietly away, this 
time crossing on the ice instead of by the bridge. 

The greyhound was never seen again in the chase 
upon the plains, and with him went all the good luck 
that the club had known this season. The members 
had taken fifteen foxes, of which he had caught 
twelve. He had only failed in one instance to catch 
the fox when he got sight of him, and this one had 
gone under the ice at an open spot in the river and 
had not come out again. 



54 

The tripod fox saw from his mountain cliff that 
the greyhound was missing at the next hunt, and he 
smiled broadly and licked his chops. He also saw 
the pursued fox scurry away across the meadow and 
get out of hearing, with the pack in full pursuit. It 
gave him delight to know that if the greyhound had 
been there the fox would have been caught in the 
open. Now he would escape. 

This revenge was very sweet to the three-legged 
fox, and he wanted more of it. They had not paid 
the price of Fuzzy's death yet, so he schemed and 
bided his time. 

The first of March was exceptionally warm, and 
brought rain, and then a sharp frost, which left a 
crust like ice. This was what the tripod fox was 
waiting for. So he went into the valley early one 
morning and left his trail in all likely places 
and then came back to the foot of the mountain and 
waited. One hour, two hours went by, and still he 
sat there upon his haunches waiting. 

Just as the sun was peeping over the eastern hills 
he heard the cry of the pack, and again that broad 
smile overspread his crafty countenance. 

The club was out in full force to-day, for it was 
to be the last hunt of the season, and everyone 
wished to bag as many pelts as possible to swell the 
total of the year's brushes. The red fox, sitting 



55 

on his haunches at the foot of the mountain, waited 
until the pack got within twenty or thirty rods of 
him before he began the ascent. The hounds were 
slipping and sliding on the crust, but the fox picked 
out the best path for them up the mountain side 
that he could find. By keeping under the trees, 
where icicles had frozen to the crust and where 
the rain had not fallen so freely, he found good foot- 
ing for them. Up, up they went, the fox leading 
by a few rods, and the pack following eagerly. 
Occasionally the hounds caught sight of the fox 
leisurely climbing a few rods ahead of them, and 
the valley below echoed with their full-throated cry. 
The waiting hunters on the crossroads wondered. 
A fox had never taken the dogs up into the moun- 
tain in that way before, and they were surprised 
that the pack could follow him up the ascent on 
such a crust. 

Half way up Reynard stopped and waited, to give 
the pack a good look at him, and to encourage 
it in the ascent. This time he let the dogs get 
within four or five rods of him. He did not climb 
any higher, but ran along the side of the mountain 
for a short distance. 

Just opposite a small scrub spruce he stopped 
and again waited for the pack. From where he sat 
he could not see what was beyond the little spruce, 



56 

but half a mile away was the meadow and the 
broad river. 

On came the pack bellowing wildly, but the red 
fox sat quietly waiting its coming. The climb had 
been slow and the pack was nicely together, and 
swept along the mountain side to the waiting fox 
almost in a bunch. 

There he sat like a statue, grimly inviting it on. 
With yelps and snarls of eagerness the dogs rushed 
upon him, but he barely eluded them, slipping and 
sliding just ahead of them toward the scrub spruce. 
They followed him excitedly, in fact they could 
do nothing else once they had started down the 
slippery incline. 

One of the hunters in the valley below saw the 
pack following along the side of the mountain, but 
just at the scrub spruce, which looked like a bush 
from where he stood, he lost sight of it and 
waited for its reappearance. Although he could 
not see the dogs he knew by their cries that they 
were close upon the fox, and he fully expected them 
to catch him, if he did not hole, which foxes occa- 
sionally did in the mountains. 

He w r as still straining his eyes and waiting ex- 
pectantly, when a yellow speck, that his trained 
sight told him was a fox, shot out over the perpendic- 
ular cliff, and fell three hundred feet upon the rocks 



57 

below. It was still in the air when a white object 
much larger followed it. This had not struck when 
a black and white form fell. The hunter gasped, 
but was too thunderstruck to speak. Then two 
more dogs shot over the cliff simultaneously, a fifth 
followed, and a second later the entire pack of five 




The Fox's Last Jump 



dogs, valued by the club at two hundred dollars, was 
lying upon the rocks, most of the hounds too 
mangled even to kick in their death moments. 

The reddish-yellow pelt of the tripod, fox was 
among the black and white of the pack, but never 
before had the skin of a solitary fox cost such a 



58 

price as that which the club paid for the pelt of the 
tripod fox 

Two Lords of the Forest 

Two massive interlocked sets of antlers that stand 
guard in the hallway of my old friend Williams's 
house, in whose congenial company I have spent 
many hours in the woods and on streams and lakes, 
set me thinking of the following story of the great 
battle, which only the ancient trees and a few fright- 
ened small creatures saw. 

We were crossing a tamarack swamp on our way 

V/i 




• ---/ ■*>■' ;*>■ 



Locked Antlers 



to a distant lonely lake, where, by the way, we were 
never lonely, and had stopped under an overhang- 
ing fir to rest and enjoy the wild beauty of the 
swamp. The vegetation was very rank in this mossy 



59 



fastness, even the trees had festooned themselves 
with long silvery streamers of moss that floated to 
and fro in the slight breeze of the summer morning. 
As light as thistle down it seemed, and it gave the 




The Friendly Fir 

dark spruces and tamaracks the semblance of veiled 
nuns. 

The busy life of the hard woods did not penetrate 
very freely to the swamp, so the birds and squirrels 
were not numerous here. 

As we sat under the friendly fir musing and ad- 
miring, I began poking in the moss with my foot, 
which soon struck something hard, This whetted 



6o 



my curiosity, and I poked away the moss and by 
degrees unearthed a hard, hornlike knob which ex- 
tended further and further down into the mold. 

Williams did not at first notice what I was about, 
but before I had guessed the truth he jumped to his 
feet, shouting excitedly, " Antlers! and a tremendous 
pair, too!' 7 

We saw that it w r as no use to dig with our hands, 
so we found some dry broken limbs and set to work 
in earnest. The more we dug, the larger grew our 
find, and the greater grew our astonishment, until in 
an hour or two we had unearthed one of the finest 
trophies that the old forest ever yielded up to curi- 
ous man. 

It was a gigantic double set of antlers locked in 
deadly embrace, and behind each was the skull bone 
and the bony outline of the combatant. Here was 
the story of a tragedy beside which the combats of 
the knights of old became struggles of pygmies. 

Williams went to look for a pole upon which to 
carry our prize between us, and I sat under the tam- 
arack musing. 

Then it was that the wood nymph, sweet custodian 
of the forest, and the gentle guardian of the wild 
things, came tripping down the aisles of the ancient 
forest and paused before me, to see if I were one of 
those dread hunters who stalk the woods and kill 



6i 

twice what they need, for mere sport. When she 
saw that I was a peaceful citizen, carrying merely 
a fishing tackle and a revolver, she told me the talc 
of the double antlers. And this is what I heard in 
the primeval forest, with the deep shade of fir tree 
above me and the moist mold of dead leaves under 
my feet. 

Five years before, in the region of our beautiful 
woodland lake, lived a moose known to hunters as 
the Tall Bull of the Umbago. His wanderings, 
especially in springtime, carried him far into the 
adjacent region, but he always returned in the mat- 
ing season to the lonely lake. Sometimes he would 
bring his mate with him from the great Barrens to 
the north, or frequently he would find her along 
some of the water courses that fed the lake. 

The Tall Bull of the Umbago was both the envy 
and despair of hunters. It was said he could detect 
at once the hollow sham of the best moose call, and 
he was so wary and his life was so well ordered that 
he had rarely felt the sting cf lead, and had never 
been hard hit. While in his own domain, as lord of 
the Umbago country, he reigned supreme. Occa- 
sionally a reckless bull, perhaps not knowing his 
danger or not fearing it, would stray into the lake 
country, but he usually left in hot haste, badly 
mauled and beaten, or else was borne down and 



62 



beaten into a mass of pulp beneath the big bull's 
hoofs. 

Forty miles to the south, along the course of two 
rivers, one coming from the mountains and one from 
the Barrens, and both meeting in the marsh country, 
dwelt the White Ghost, the great albino bull who 




The Tall Bull of the Umbago 



was half a myth and half a reality in the settlements. 
Those who had seen him averred that he was fully 
a half larger than the average moose, while those 
who had not, said he was a phantom, or the wild 
conjuring of spirits and water. 

Like the Tall Bull of the Umbago country, the 
White Ghost knew no equal and tolerated no rival 



63 

along the water course and in the foothills where he 
ranged. 

One autumn, when the forest was ablaze with 
color and the moonlight of Indian summer had 
warmed the blood in the veins of the bull moose, the 
Tall Bull of the Umbago country set out on a pilgrim- 
age, caring not where he went, so long as he traveled 
far and feed was good, for that restlessness of the 
mating season was upon him and he expected some- 
where in the great wilderness to hear the call of the 
cow moose that would summon him to the first of 
many a tryst under the scarlet forest. On the edge 
of the great tamarack swamp he heard the call for 
which he ranged the wilderness, and answered it. 
Just at the time the Tall Bull left the lake, the White 
Ghost left the low country and started on a pil- 
grimage northward, for he, too, had felt the magic of 
the moon. The fire of the autumn was in his veins 
and he, too, sought the tryst. The third day of his 
wanderings he came to the tamarack swamp, where 
he discovered fresh moose signs, which he followed 
eagerly. He skirted the swamp for half a mile, and 
came to a spot where the weeds and ferns were tram- 
pled flat as a floor. Moose had evidently spent the 
night there. So he singled out the fresher of the two 
tracks leading from the trampled weeds and followed 
it. Ten minutes more brought him into a clump 



6 4 

of birches a little apart from the swain]), where a 
moose cow was ravenously cropping the young leaves 
from a small birch which she held down under her 
fore leg. 

The White Ghost greeted her joyously, but his 
suit was unwelcome, for the cow let go the birch and 




The Cow Moose Feeding 

slipped away, without so much as looking back to 
see who the newcomer might be. For, according to 
the ethics of the forest, she was bound to the Tall 
Bull of the Umbago country, and the newcomer was 
one day too late. 

It was tantalizing, when one had come so far, to 



65 

have that elusive brown shadow always just one 
thicket ahead, and the White Ghost's temper was 
nettled. 

He called beseechingly, putting as much pathos 
and enchantment as could well be expressed in a 
deep-chested bellow, but the brown shadow fled on. 
But if his call was not answered by the cow, it did 
not go unheeded, for the winds wafted it to other 
ears, and the Tall Bull came shambling through the 
forest, thrashing the underbrush with, his antlers and 
bellowing with rage. 

His precincts were being invaded and his rights 
usurped. The White Ghost, nothing dismayed, 
answered with a thundering bellow that made the 
aisles of the quiet forest resound. This, then, was 
the secret of his failure, his humiliation. This 
matter should be contested with horn and hoof. If 
the newcomer was master of the situation he would 
need to retain it with strong antlers. 

A blind fury like a whirlwind possessed the White 
Ghost. He would not stand like a calf, or like 
a two year old awaiting the fray, so he crashed 
through the underbrush in the direction of his ad- 
versary. 

Like two battering rams these giants came to- 
gether, and the woods echoed with the shock of the 
contact. Each rose upon his hind legs with the 

TRAIL TO WOODS. 5 



66 

shock of motion suddenly arrested; for a moment 
like giant wrestlers they stood, and then settled to 
earth with a heavy thud. Bits of splintered horn 
flicked the leaves in the tree tops, and the grinding 
of the massive horns blended strangely with half- 
stifled bellows of rage and quick hard breaths that 
ended in a sort of whistle. 

The trees shivered with fright and the night winds 
fled away in fear, but the giants battled on. 

There were sudden lunges with the great antlers 
that crashed together like steel, and there were 
sudden feints and quick attempts to catch the rival 
off his guard and lacerate his side with the many- 
pronged antlers; but each was an adept in antler 
play, and thrust was parried with thrust, and feint 
met feint. 

It was simply a matter of endurance, and each 
combatant was determined to humble his adversary 
or leave his bones on the green carpet that he had 
trod so proudly. 

The underbrush was trampled to bits, and the 
turf was plowed as though by cavalry. Many a 
sapling bent and broke with a crack like a pistol as 
the battle shifted ground. But as the seconds grew 
to minutes and the minutes to quarter hours, the 
crash of horns became less frequent and the deep 
breathing grew louder. Each breath now ended in 



6; 



a sob. Blood dripped from the nostrils and foam 
fell from the long upper lips. 

It was now fighting at close range; there was 
snapping of teeth, clicking of hoofs, and deep- 
throated sobs for breath. Each was alternately on 
the defensive, but their fury would not let them rest. 




The Fight 

The bright harvest moon threw scintillating beams 
into the cavernous woods, that the owl and the night 
hawk might see this tragedy of the wilderness. 

Suddenly the mode of the battle changed. There 
were backward pulls and wrenchings of the head and 
terrible twists to the right and left that made the 



68 

necks of both combatants crack and hoarse bellows 
of pain escape their foaming lips. Their antlers 
were locked in deadly embrace. Now indeed it 
would be a fight to the finish and of necessity a 
drawn battle. 

All through the night the stars caught fitful peeps 
of huge forms in the tangle of underbrush. Some- 
times the struggle would cease for half an hour and 
then begin again with renewed fury. But the 
periods of activity grew less and less frequent until 
finally they ceased altogether. The combatants 
were down and there was little left to do but strike 
savagely with those deep-cutting hoofs, which 
merely cut the air. Horns and hoofs were now 
alike unavailing. It was hunger that would humble 
them. 

When the sun shot his first beams into the woods 
they were still there kicking and thrashing, but 
their great strength was spent and any wolf that 
skulked the woods could look down upon them now. 

Blowflies and gnats swarmed upon them, all eager 
for the warm, thick blood. The weasel came out 
of his hiding and licked the leaves, and all the 
crawling, creeping things made merry. 

A little later crows discovered what was going on, 
and soon the tree tops were black with, their glossy 
wings, and the air was filled with their cries. The 



69 

lynx heard the commotion and came skulking from 
his lair. Foxes and wildcats would come to the 
feast, and perhaps a stray wolf would hear of it later. 

These two fallen lords of the forest were not yet 
cold when the scavengers began their business. It 
was a gruesome thing, dismembering these giants, 
once so strong and grand in their strength. But 
it was what always happened, and after all it was 
a facsimile of man's own battles, — Rome and Car- 
thage warring against each other to their mutual 
destruction. Nothing of the feast was wasted, for 
even the bones were polished like ivory, until only 
the skeletons and the great antlers remained. Then 
the friendly trees dropped a mantle of leaves over 
these and the ferns wrapped them about to conceal 
what had happened. Year after year with loving 
tendrils and fretted fronds Nature sought to cover up 
this double tragedy of the forest, and finally the 
mosses grew where the bones had been, and only 
the ants and grubs knew what was beneath. 

Thus it is with Nature; the grave we dig to-day 
she seeks to cover up to-morrow with grasses and 
flowers. So go the rounds of the seasons, man 
scarring and destroying, and Nature renewing and 
restoring. 



7o 



Tow-Head and the Old He-One 

The old " He-One" is a quaint New England 
expression, a little" uncouth, perhaps, but most ex- 
pressive. As I have heard it used, it refers to a trout 
or other New England game fish of extraordinary 
size and age. 

The particular old " He-One," to whose affairs I 
will invite your attention, could almost always be 




Trout 



found under an unpretentious little bridge that 
spanned one of the best trout brooks into which 
angler ever cast fly. 

What a poem is suggested to the country boy by 
the magic word i ' bridge ! " Whenever I hear this sug- 
gestive word it is always accompanied by the pleas- 
ant murmur of running water, and the smell of willow 
and sweet flag, and the cry of the kingfisher. 

When one says " bridge" to the average country 
boy, he never thinks of those gigantic modern struc- 



7i 

tures of stone and steel that span the broadest 
rivers and the deepest chasms, but his thoughts al- 
ways turn to the quaint little country bridge, per- 
haps not over twenty or thirty feet in length, whose 
planks are wheel-worn and dusty, and whose railing 
is rough and rustic. No country boy can ever pass 
one of these bridges without stopping to look into 
the cool fresh waters beneath, no matter how urgent 
the errand on which he is sent. 

Many a half hour I have spent lying on my stom- 
ach upon the particular bridge under which the old 
" He-One" lived. There was some danger of having 
one's legs run over by a passing team, and one also 
might pitch headlong into the water, but these things 
only added zest to the performance. 

It was worth walking half a mile any day and 
lying upon one's stomach in the dust for an hour, 
just to get one glimpse of this speckled beauty. He 
would always be standing head up stream, gently 
fanning the water with his fins and tail. Some- 
times a sunbeam would filter through a crack in the 
bridge and fall full upon him, lighting up the iri- 
descent green and yellow upon his sides and back, 
and making his spots to shine like gold. Then he 
was a living jewel. At other times he would stand 
in the shadow, the dark mottling upon his back look- 
ing almost black, but he was always a thing of beauty, 



72 

and coveted by all the small boys in the district as a 
miser covets gold. 

Once and only once I hooked him squarely, but 
he got away after a battle royal of ten minutes. The 
ruse that I tried upon him this time was a very simple 
one that I had learned from an old fisherman. 

First I located my prize under the bridge and then 
went up stream and roiled the brook until it was 
dense with mud. I then dropped in my hook and 
let it float down with the muddy particles. The 
worm was merely looped on the hook once to make 
it look as natural as possible. When the old " He- 
One" saw the mud coming he probably reasoned 
in this way: 

" Hello, the bank has caved in. How muddy 
the stream is! My! here comes a fine worm that 
has fallen in with it. How it kicks and squirms! 
This is no fisherman's device, but just a providential 
breakfast, that some clumsy foot has provided for 
me," and without more ado he took my worm. 

I was fishing with a slender pole that I had cut 
that morning, and of course it was green and limber. 
At the first wild rush it bent double, and this prob- 
ably kept the hook from pulling out, as I had no reel 
and barely ten feet of line. 

Back and forth the big trout rushed, while my 
heart pounded away like a trip hammer, for I was so 



n 

excited that I could hardly breathe. Already I saw 
him lying in the pan of the scales at the country 
grocery, and a lively crowd of envious boys crowding 




I was Fishing with a Slender Pole 



about to be sure of his weight. I even went so tar 
as to imagine an item in the next week's paper, al] 
about the small boy who had caught the big trout 



74 

« 

that had baffled expert fishermen for years. But 
even while I dreamed the gut snapped, and the old 
" He-One" went up stream like a bullet, leaving a 
long ripple in the water behind him. 

I could hardly believe my eyes. I had been so sure 
of him a minute before, but there was the broken 
gut and no hook or fish upon it. It was something, 
though, to have hooked such an old settler, and I 
made the most of that fact, which was all the conso- 
lation that remained to me. 

The manner in which Tow-Head hooked and 
captured the old trout was quite different, and I 
venture to say that no other old " He-One " was 
ever taken in quite such a way. 

Tow-Head was a ragged, dirty, white-headed 
urchin of about ten years. His chief characteris- 
tic was laziness, and considering this fact the cap- 
ture of the old trout was a double achievement; for 
thereby Tow-Head performed an act that forever 
stilled the tongues of the country youth that had 
continually wagged about his weakness. 

Tow-Head had been sent by his father to plant 
corn in the neighborhood of the bridge. But on 
arriving at the field he had seen some crows on a 
neighboring tree, watching to see just where he 
planted the corn, that they might go and dig it up. 
Of course it would have been folly to plant under 



75 

such unfavorable circumstances, so Tow-Head hid 
the seed corn and hoe in a bush and went to the 
bridge to rest himself with the sound of running 
water. 

There was just room enough to sit upon the end 
of the planks on the outside of the railing and dangle 
one's feet over the water, and at the same time rest 
one's back against the great post that held the rail- 
ing. It was a rather doubtful perch, but quite safe 
if one kept his head and was not disturbed by out- 
siders. 

I well remember a hair-raising experience I had 
on that same perch one morning while fishing. I 
was wholly employed with angling and did not no- 
tice the approach of Uncle Rastus Billings, who was 
quite a joker in his way. 

Suddenly in some unaccountable manner I slipped 
from my perch and started for a headlong plunge 
into the brook. But midway in air I was arrested 
by a violent jerk on my coat, and drawn back to 
the bridge again. With my heart in my mouth I 
looked over my shoulder into the grinning face of 
Uncle Rastus. 

"Hello!" he cried, shaking with laughter "If I 
hadn't caught you, you would have gone in that 
time, sure." 

He had pushed me off the end of the plank and at 



76 

the same time held on to my coat, drawing me back, 
dangling and kicking like a frog. 

This morning when he should have been planting 
corn, Tow-Head was perched on the end of the plank, 




•W«j-. ^ 



Tow- Head 



dangling a fish line in the brook. The sound of the 
running water and the soft sighing of the wind made 
Tow-Head sleepy. He was always sleepy, in fact, 
but this morning particularly so. So he tied his 
fish line to his big toe, and leaned back against the 



77 

post and dozed , and the brook sang him to 
sleep. 

There is something peculiar in the lives of game 
and fish, something quite unaccountable. A fox 
will live for years, avoiding the most intricate traps 
and snares, displaying an ingenuity and cunning 
that would seem almost incredible to anyone but a 
woodsman, — to die at last at the hands of a mere 
boy, or to put his paw deliberately into some trap 
that he has avoided a hundred times before. In the 
same way a great fish will avoid every allurement 
of the most scientific fisherman, and finallv succumb 
to a boy with only a six-foot line and a piece of 
salt pork on the hook. Whether they tire of the 
game that they have so long played and walk delib- 
erately into the snare, or whether it is a fit of tem- 
porary madness, I cannot say, but the fact may often 
be noted both in field and stream. 

Suddenly Tow-Head's nap was cut short by a 
violent jerk on his toe, and before he knew what 
had happened he pitched headlong into the brook, 
while his right leg shot out in a direction that would 
have taken it down stream at^a furious pace had it 
not been attached to his body. 

He fell face down in the brook; his breath was 
knocked out of him, and the blood pushed from his 
nose in a bright stream. There he lay in the water 



78 

gasping for breath and kicking for several seconds. 
But the stream was not deep, and presently his 
breath came back. Then he gave a yell that startled 
the countryside for half a mile around. Faint and 
dizzy he struggled to his feet, but his right leg acted 
strangely, for it kept shooting out from under him 
and going down stream, while something sawed 
away at his toe as though it would take it off. Had 
a mud turtle got hold of him ? At the mere thought 
a new fit of terror seized him and he redoubled his 
shouting, but his right leg would not let him rest, 
for it continually jerked this way and that, so that 
he could scarcely stand. Was it bewitched? 

Then there was a shout from the bridge above, 
and the end of a fish pole was thrust down to the 
terrified boy. 

"Take hold of that, Tow-Head," said a voice, 
"and stop your crying. I will work you along 
to the other side of the brook where it's only six 
inches deep." 

"What were you making such a noise about, 
Tow-Head?" the voice continued. "There's no 
shark in the brook, and your hair isn't even wet. 
Why don't you come along, you sleepyhead? You 
can't expect me to drag you with the pole." 

"Something has got my right leg and I can't," 
whimpered Tow-Head. "I guess it is a turtle; he 
has got me by the toe." 



79 

" Perhaps it's a fish/' replied the voice from the 
bridge. 

Then Tow-Head remembered the line on his toe, 
and new courage came to him. " Maybe it is," he 







Tow- Head's Prize 



stammered. "I did have a line on my toe when 
I fell in." 

Then he pulled gently with his foot, and for 
answer there was a sharp jerk on the line. "Why, 
it is! " he exclaimed, all excited. 



8o 

"It can't be the old ' He-One,' can it?" asked 
the voice excitedly. 

Xhen Tow-Head began working in to shore, all 
the time drawing gently on the strange something 
that tugged at his foot. Then a few bubbles came 
to the surface, and a second later the great trout that 
we had so often seen under the bridge, gently fan- 
ning the water with his fins, floated to the surface 
and rolled over on his back. 

For a second the boy thought he must be dream- 
ing, the great speckled beauty was so much beyond 
his wildest expectations. Then he seized the trout 
in both hands and scrambled up the bank, shout- 
ing at the top of his voice, "I've got the old ' He- 
One! ' I've got the old ' He-One! ' " 

For once Tow-Head's lethargy entirely left him. 
He did not even stop to take the fish from the hook, 
but started for the village at the top of his speed, 
one end of the line still tied to his toe, and the other 
in the trout's mouth. 

His clothes were dripping with water, his face 
and blouse were smeared with blood, but both his 
eyes and mouth were wide with excitement, as he 
raced to the village, shouting to everyone that he met, 
"I've got the old 'He-One! ' I've. got the old One! " 

Five minutes later he burst into the country 
grocery store, breathless and excited, gasping, — 



8i 

"Mr. Murrey, come quick! I've got the old l He- 
One/ and I want to weigh him before he shrinks.' ' 

Mr. Murrey, who was quite a boy himself, came 
up the cellar stairs two steps at a time and hastily 
put the big trout into the scales. Tow-Head's eyes 
opened wider and w r ider as the grocer shoved the 
weight further and further along on the beam. At 
three pounds and a quarter it refused to rise again, 
so that was declared to be the true weight of the 
great trout. 

The King of the Clouds 

The first time I saw the King of the Clouds it was 
by a mere accident. He was on his way to the upper 
air, going up in that beautiful spiral peculiar to the 
eagle and hawk family, which man always imitates 
when he has any great mountain climbing to do. 

I could not have seen the King this time, had he 
not been clearly outlined against the blue green of a 
distant mountain top. One more turn of his spiral, 
and he would have had the summer sky for back- 
ground, and this was so near his own silver gray in 
color that I should not have noticed him. 

We were a party of mountain climbers, half a 
dozen boys, with one glass between us. This I 
quickly borrowed and focused on the cloud-aspiring 

TRAIL TO WOODS. 6 



82 



eagle. It was a beautiful sight to see him wind up, 
beyond the mountain top, into the blue depths. 
He went up as easily and gently as a wreath of 
smoke on a clear day, I tried to follow him, in my 
boyish fancy, but it taxed my imagination to the 
utmost. I tried to see the green earth gently fall 




Eagle 

away beneath me, and the broad fields shrink until 
they became mere bright squares of green and gold ; 
the towns along the great river turn to toy villages 
that any child might have picked up and tossed 
about at will; to see the broad Connecticut narrow 
down to a silver ribbon. Then to look down upon 
the twin mountains, one each side of the river, and 



83 

see them also fall away just as the valley beneath 
them had done. Then to have my horizon widen, 
and great sweeps of hill and valley spread out in 
every direction. First the foothills of the Green 
Mountains away to the north, and Monadnock's 
peak, round and symmetrical. To the east Wachu- 
sett, a hazy purple. Away on the southwestern 
horizon line, barely seen, but every second growing 
clearer and clearer, the blue Catskills, and away to 
the south, a silver glimmering just at the horizon 
line. This was the Sound, seen across a panorama 
of eighty miles of hilltops and valleys. 

When the eagle had reached such a height that 
one had to strain his sight to follow him even with a 
glass, he set his wings, just as a hawk will do when he 
plunges down to the earth and descended like a fall- 
ing star, — not straight down, but in a beautiful, 
oblique course that made the aerial performances of 
parachute and balloon seem like child's play. 

Again I tried to follow him in this downward 
plunge, — to see the landscape gradually narrow, the 
mountain tops on the horizon line grow dim and 
finally fade away in the distance. Then the twin 
mountain tops come gently up to meet one, with the 
green earth swiftly rising, and mere specks taking on 
familiar shapes. 

When the eagle reached an altitude about the 



8 4 

same as that of the mountain, his oblique course 
began to curve, until it had become almost parallel 
with the mountain side. Then thinking he had got 
down into the atmosphere of man and lowly things, 
he soared majestically away, over the meadows to 
the opposite mountain, and was visible no more that 
day. 

The second time that I saw the Cloud King was 
from the mountain top as before. This time we were 
picnicking. We were seated about a large rock, 
and luncheon was proceeding, intermingled with 
stories and laughter, when we heard a pathetic little 
sound like the cry of a child or the bleating of a 
lamb coming from no one knew where. It was 
very faint at first, but gradually grew 7 louder, as 
though coming our way. We gazed along the cliff, 
and back down the path, and in every direction but 
the right one. Then a shadow fell upon the cliff 
below and moved rapidly up toward us. Then I 
looked up into the sky, and almost directly over us 
was the Cloud King, with a little lamb in his talons, 
bearing it away to his mountain eyrie. The poor 
lamb, who seemed to be calling to us for assistance, 
had probably been stunned by a blow on the head 
and his eyes picked out before the eagle had started 
with him, and had now revived enough to bleat 
pitifully. We heard him but for a moment, for his 



8< 



cries grew fainter and fainter, and long before the 
eagle was hidden by the trees, we could no longer 
hear them. 

My third glimpse of the Cloud King was from the 
summer hotel at the top of the mountain just at 




Carrying off the Lamb 

sunset. A windstorm had arisen in the valley .be- 
low, and one half of the broad expanse w r as in sun- 
light, while the rest was as black as night. The 
dividing line between the storm and the sunlight 
was as apparent as that between night and day. 
The eagle was going home to his mountain fastness 



86 



across the valley when the storm struck him. For 
a moment it beat him back, and he actually lost 
ground, but his great wings buffeted the whirlwind 
fiercely. His wild scream could be heard above 
the bellow of the wind as he battled with the ele- 
ments. Like a strong ship, he turned and met the 
storm squarely, and by degrees gained on it. The 
lightning played upon his white crest, and his wings 
gleamed like burnished silver in the lurid light. 
Then with strong, steady strokes he went straight 
up the wind to his nest at the very mountain top. 
He seemed to glory in his strength of flight, for 
the boisterous winds were akin to his wild, imperious 
nature. The thunderbolts of Jove and the whirl- 
wind were his element, and he swam the ether as a 
fish might the deep. 

The most startling act in the life of the Cloud 
King I did not see, but the following account of it 
was given to me by a friend who had witnessed it. 

A girl about ten years old was wheeling a baby 
carriage along a dusty country road. It was the 
ferry road leading down to the broad Connecticut. 
The morning was warm, and the sunlight danced 
on the surface of the river until it shone like a 
mirror. 

Suddenly a great bird was seen flapping its wings 
in the air just above the baby carriage. The sun 



37 

was so bright that the little girl's eyes were dazzled, 
but she felt instinctively that the baby was in peril. 
With great presence of mind and good courage she 
sprang to the rescue, clasping her baby brother 




The Eagle and the Children 



about the waist. The strong talons of the eagle 
were by this time hooked in the baby's dress, and 
the broad wings sought to bear it away into the 
upper air to a terrible death. But the combined 
weight of the children was too much even for the 



88 

Cloud King's strength, and he could not lift them 
from the ground. 

Suddenly realizing their peril, the girl screamed 
for help, and her father, who was working in a field 
near by, came running to their assistance. 

His horror can better be imagined than described 
when he saw the eagle about to bear his child away 
in its steely talons. The father shouted and waved 
his arms, and ran with all his might. 

Seeing that he was foiled in his design the great 
bird loosened his hold from the child's dress, and 
flew away over the river to the mountain. 

After this incident, which was written up by a 
local paper and widely copied, there was great in- 
dignation against the Cloud King. Several hunters 
tried to shoot him, but all were unsuccessful. They 
could not get near enough to use a shotgun, and 
none were skillful enough to shoot him on the wing 
with a rifle, and they never saw him sitting. 

I alone of all the boys in the village had discovered 
the Cloud King's nest, and I had become deeply 
interested in the fortunes of the eagle family. I 
had spent several pleasant afternoons watching them 
during the week that the two eaglets learned to fly. 
I had seen the old birds push them from the nest, 
and then hover over them as they sought to battle 
with the air, even flying under the young birds and 



8 9 

buoying them up when they were about to fall upon 
the cliffs below. 

One of the best riflemen in the neighborhood, 
hearing that I knew where the nest was, urged me 
to show it to him. While I was very loath to dis- 
close the Cloud King's secret, the hunter finally per- 
suaded me by laying the responsibility for all the 
children in the county upon my shoulders, saying that 
if any child were to be carried off by the eagle I 
would blame myself for it all the rest of my days. 

So, reluctantly, I led the way to the eagles' moun- 
tain fastness, feeling almost like a traitor The 
nearest point from which the nest could be seen was 
about forty rods down the mountain, as the slopes 
were heavily wooded. But there the Cloud King 
was on his favorite perch, the dead top of an old 
pine that had probably been struck by lightning. 
Neither the hawk nor the eagle takes any pains to 
conceal himself when he lights on a tree, but prefers 
to be out in the open, where he can see what is 
going on. 

The old eagle made a splendid mark, as his silver- 
gray form was strongly silhouetted against the green 
of a pine further up the mountain. 

The hunter could not get a rest, so had to risk an 
offhand shot. 

Almost at the same instant that the rifle cracked 



go 

the great bird sprang from his perch and gave three 
strong strokes with his wings. This carried him well 
out over the crest of the mountain. Then he set 
his wings for his last plunge downward, as I had 
seen him do in the upper air. 

Down the mountain side he came, flying just 
above the tree tops. Although he passed over our 
heads like a bullet, we could see that his head 
drooped slightly and his talons were clinched. 

I do not think that he moved his wings once after 
he dropped over the mountain's crest until he fell 
in the road at the foot of the mountain, nearly half 
a mile below. 

We found him in the road as we had expected, 
with his great wings spread to their utmost and his 
head thrust between two weeds as though in hiding, 
but his hiding was probably a mere accident, as he 
was stone dead. 

He was shot through the body, very close to the 
heart. A human being so wounded would have 
dropped dead in his tracks, but this noble bird's 
last impulse was to spread his wings to the utmost 
and hold them rigid until the last spark of life left 
him. 

To-day his form sits upon the hunter's writing 
desk, looking scornfully down at his slayer. His 
broad wings are folded upon his sides, their mighty 



93 

It was very chilly for the time of year, and white 
frost was on the weeds and grass along the runways 
and by the brookside. And in many places the 
grasses were fringed with fretted beads of frozen 
mist, that would vanish like a shadow at the touch 
of the sun. 

It wanted half an hour of sunrise, and the pretty 
country village at the foot of the mountain still 
slept, only one enterprising farmhouse sending forth 
its wreath of blue smoke. 

A silent old crow was winging his way over the 
valley to distant corn fields. He had slept com- 
fortably all night in the top of a spruce on the 
mountain side and was going for his breakfast. 

Down the old cow path that led from the wooded 
slopes of the mountain to the open fields below, a 
proud buck came leading his little family to the tur- 
nip field, where they had made a fine breakfast the 
morning before. The buck moved like a lord of the 
forest, stepping with that quick firm tread so full of 
grace and strength. There was something in the 
motion of those slim legs that suggested steel springs 
that could at any moment rebound with lightning 
rapidity and the strength of a catapult. 

Whenever he came to a brush fence or other ob- 
struction he made the boast of his supple limbs 
good, for he bounded over it with an airiness 



94 

that fairly seemed to set at naught the laws of 
gravitation. 

He was followed at a short distance by a doe, who 
was in turn closely followed by a fawn of seven or 
eight months. The doe gave herself less airs than 
the buck, still her every motion was light and grace- 
ful, but the fawn with his pretty leopard's coat and 
dainty manners was the fairest of them all. 

He followed like a dutiful offspring the footprints 
of his mother, knowing that she would choose the 
best way and keep him from harm. Whenever the 
trio stopped he crowded forward against his mother's 
side and thrust an inquisitive muzzle towards hers, 
asking what it meant. Occasionally the buck or 
doe would nip the top of a tempting head of grass, 
but they did not linger long, for they had determined 
to breakfast upon turnips. 

It was the first day of the open season in the state 
of Vermont, but the deer knew not that the hunter 
was on their trail; the morning breeze was just as 
fresh and the fields just as sweet as they had been 
the day before. 

Presently the three bounded over a low stone wall 
and were in the field of turnips. The doe faced 
the wind and the buck the opposite direction, that 
they might cover both points of the compass with 
their keen nostrils. They always took this precau- 



95 

tion whether sleeping or awake, for it gave one more 
safeguard from their many dangers. 

It took but three or four stamps of those keen-cut- 
ting hoofs to lay the dirt bare around the root of a 
turnip, and then it was pulled with the teeth and 
eaten at leisure. 

It was a pretty picture, this trio of wild creatures 
getting their breakfast from the bounty of Nature and 
the toil of man. But the meal did not proceed 
leisurely; it was hurried and restless, with sudden 
startled liftings of the head and a continual twitch- 
ing of the short tail. 

Once the buck raised his head and tested the air 
in all directions, snorting and stamping and shak- 
ing his head, as though doubtful or suspicious, but 
he finally concluded that the taint had been in his 
own nostrils, and the doe and fawn, w r ho had raised 
their heads excitedly, resumed their feeding. 

A moment later there was a small puff of smoke 
from behind a little spruce, at the other side of the 
meadow, nearly four hundred yards away, and a 
38-55 Winchester rifle bullet, singing its dirge of 
destruction, came hurtling across the intervening 
distance. 

The little herd did not see the smoke, their heads 
being down among the green turnip tops, so there 
was no warning, not even a suspicion; for what 



96 

nostrils, however keen, could be expected to dis- 
tinguish the dreaded man scent a quarter of a mile 
away, unless the wind was very strong? 

The instant the sharp crack of the Winchester 
came up the wind to the feeding deer, the buck, 
caught fairly with a bullet behind the shoulder, 
sprang into the air with a short explosive snort. 
The bewildered and paralyzed brain said, " Flee!" 
but the limbs for once refused to obey, and the noble 
animal collapsed and fell heavily, then heaved a 
deep sigh and stretched out motionless in death. 

The doe and the fawn threw up their heads, wild- 
eyed and terrified. Their native instinct and wild 
training said, "Flee!" but the sight of their mute 
and bleeding protector, the one upon whom they had 
always relied in time of danger, and the uncertain 
echo of the rifle that seemed to come from all direc- 
tions at once, held them spellbound, rooted by fear 
to the spot. 

Then there was another puff of smoke from be- 
hind the little spruce, and a second bullet cut a row 
of turnip tops under the doe's belly, burying itself in 
the field beyond. It was a good line shot, but a little 
low. Then the wild instinct of self-preservation 
asserted itself, and the doe and fawn bounded away 
over the wall and were soon lost in the woods at the 
foot of the mountain. 



97 

On and on they went, the wild mother leading in 
graceful bounds, and the dutiful fawn following in 
her hoofprints, for that was the only safe way, going 
at such a breakneck pace. Their white flags were 
up, 1 and the fear that had been bred in their veins 
since the days of Adam grew rather than diminished 
as they fled. 

Possibly the frightened doe expected the buck to 
rejoin them soon; but neither she nor the forest nor 
the brookside ever saw him again, . for his antlers 
were hung above the fireplace in the hunter's home, 
and his brown coat made a soft mat for the feet of 
little children. 

On through deep gulches where the spruce and 
pine hung darkling, by tamarack swamps where 
their hoofs sunk deep in the soft moss and the ferns 
were still green, through long stretches of first 
growth that the woodsman's ax had spared, they 
fled, it mattered not where they went, so long as they 
saw not man or any trace of his handiwork. Once 
when they came suddenly out into a mowing they 
heard that terrifying roar again, like the crack of 
doom, and fled on, fear lending wings to their hoofs. 

This time it was only an irate farmer blazing 
away at a woodchuck with a rusty old shotgun, but 

1 This phrase refers to the deer's short tail which stands erect, like 
a small white flag, when the animal is fleeing from its pursuers. 

TRAIL TO WOODS. 7 



9 8 

they had not the fine discrimination to distinguish 
between a Winchester and an old muzzle-loader, and 
so their fear was wasted. 

For the first hour or two the seven months' old 
fawn bounded lightly after its mother, exulting in 
its sinewy limbs and in the joy of flight. It was 
thrilling to spurn the green sward with those dainty 
hoofs and then to rise lightly over a brush fence or 
stone wall. But as the flight wore on, without ces- 
sation, the fawn lagged behind and was coaxed and 
threatened by its wild mother, who knew their dan- 
ger better than her offspring. 

In the middle of the forenoon they trotted into a 
broad green meadow. It was traversed by a wide, 
swift river, which the doe would have swum, had she 
been alone, for the more water a deer puts behind 
it the safer it feels, but the current was too swift and 
the swim was too long for the fawn. 

Midway in the meadow, where the lush grass was 
high and buttercups and daisies grew profusely, they 
crossed an imaginary line, which henceforth was to 
play an important part in their fortunes, but of 
which they knew naught. 

After the meadows were passed the foothills came 
close in to the great river, and afforded the deer 
better cover for their flight. Here, too, they found 
a peculiar path, broad and straight, with two glit- 



99 

tering strips just so far apart, stretching away into 
the distance. Here were convenient sticks to step 
upon, and for a time the way was easy. But soon 
they heard a rumble and a shriek that was like noth- 
ing they had ever heard before. It gave new wings 
to their hoofs, and they fled on like the wind. But 
the rumbling grew louder and louder, and again 
that demoniacal shriek sounded across the broad 
river and reverberated among the foothills, now 
coming from this direction and now from that, as 
the echoes rolled from hilltop to hilltop. 

Then a great hissing, smoking, roaring monster, 
running like a moose, with both thunder and light- 
ning in his hoof beats, came after them out of the 
north. 

They strained every muscle, and their hoofs rose 
and fell with lightning rapidity. Then the hideous 
demon gave a series of short wild shrieks and made 
the hills ring, and added to it a strange rhythmic, 
beating sound. 

With that instinct bred from long generations of 
their kind that had fled before hounds and other 
pursuing foes, the doe doubled sharply to the right, 
leaving the railroad track at a high embankment, 
and taking a plunge of twenty feet down a sharp 
incline. With dutiful instinct the fawn followed, 
straining its shoulder in the plunge, and the two dis- 

LOFC. 



IOO 



appeared in the spruces, the fawn limping painfully 
while the train rushed on like the passing of a 
hurricane. 

In the deep spruces the doe turned back to coax 
and caress her injured offspring, who was bleating 
painfully. With her warm muzzle she stifled the 
sounds of pain, for she knew that any noise on their 
part was dangerous. To travel any further that 
day was out of the question. So she hid the fawn in 
a fallen tree top and ranged near by, occasionally 
taking shelter in the friendly cover. 

There they rested until the sun was low in the 
west, when hunger and a sense of peril that still 
lurked in their wake made the doe restless, and after 
coaxing and caressing the fawn the two resumed 
their flight, but at a much slower pace. 

Soon they came out on the brow of a hill overlook- 
ing a village. This was the abode of man, their 
worst enemy, so they made a detour, going further 
into the foothills. In so doing they crossed one of 
those broad, smooth paths that they noticed so fre- 
quently, but did not dare follow, being suspicious of 
everything that was not natural, and this was surely 
artificial. 

Shortly after crossing the path they heard a pe- 
culiar short cry at regular intervals, that seemed to 
come nearer and nearer. They quickened their 



IOI 



pace, going as fast as the fawn reasonably could 
with its lame shoulder, but it was not fast enough, for 
they soon began to be annoyed by the cry of a fox- 
hound that came nearer and nearer. This new 
danger was certainly on their scent, and they could 
not escape as usual in flight. As the baying drew 
nearer, the doe stamped and snorted, and the fawn 
limped painfully after her. They crossed the broad 
path for the second time, just as a team rumbled 
past, and the driver noticed the fleeing doe and fawn 
and the pursuing hound. 

Down in the village he stopped at a farmhouse 
and hailed a stalwart man sitting on the porch. 

" Hello, Jem," he cried, "I just saw a doe and 
fawn cross the road. They went into Thompson's 
pasture, and Si Higgins's hound was right after them. 
The fawn seemed to be about tired out. You had 
better go up and see about it." 

"All right; much obliged," was the reply. "I 
guess I'll take along a revolver. Perhaps I may 
have occasion to use it." 

He went into the house, put on his coat, thrust a 
large revolver into his pocket, and hurried up the 
road. 

In the spruces about forty rods from where the 
man with the team had seen the doe and fawn cross 
the road they came to bay. The fawn could limp no 



102 



further, and the doe, with that strong, maternal in- 
stinct, which is the most beautiful thing in the life 
of the wild, would not desert her offspring, even in 
the face of great danger to herself. The hound came 
in furiously, following at sight, and baying a steady 
stream, until the forest was filled with its cries. 




The Doe at Bay 

The mother hid the injured fawn in a thicket and 
came out bravely to meet the enemy. The hound 
circled round and round, trying to get into the 
thicket, springing at the doe's throat, and snapping 
and snarling. But she kept him at bay for a time, 
striking with those sharp, cutting hoofs, but the pres- 



103 

ent anxiety and her long flight had sapped her 
strength and nearly crazed her; she gasped for 
breath, and each inspiration was a long-drawn 
whistle, while the hound was fresh and eager for 
the quarry. 

Then there was a cracking of the underbrush and 
another enemy hurried to the scene. It was man, 
the most dreaded of them all. At the sight of him 
the hound renewed his efforts, springing, snapping 
and snarling, at the now doubly terrified doe. 

It was a strange and pathetic picture, illustrating 
three stages in the manifold form of animal life. 
First, there was the wild creature, slight and grace- 
ful, with but one thought, that of self-preservation; 
next, the domestic animal, half wild and half civi- 
lized, eager for the chase and the taste of warm 
blood; and lastly, man. 

Again the hound sprang at the doe's throat, 
catching her squarely, and bringing her to the 
ground. Then the man raised his arm, something 
gleamed in the light that filtered through the leaves 
of the forest trees, and then that roar which had 
ushered in this hideous day again woke the quiet 
of the woods. But miracle of miracles, the light- 
ning and the bright flame that mean death to deni- 
zens of the woods did not injure them this time. 
With a howl of pain the hound loosed his hold on 



104 

the doe's throat and limped away into the darkness. 
Bewildered and amazed the doe struggled to her feet 
and fled in an opposite direction, the faw r n fol- 
lowing slowly and bleating in answer to her calls 
of alarm, while the man was left alone holding the 
smoking revolver. 

In a tangle of weeds and clematis, underneath a 
low-hanging hemlock, they found rest and shelter, 
and their strength and courage soon returned to 
them. This was a strange land into w T hich they had 
come, a land where the hounds no longer followed 
them, and where the thunder no longer killed. The 
reason for all this was very simple. It was not 
an accident that the fatal lightning had struck the 
hound instead of the deer, for the man was a game- 
warden enforcing the law in the state of Massachu- 
setts, which protects the deer from both hounds and 
men and leaves them tenants of the wilderness, un- 
fettered and free as the winds that blow. 

An Ill-timed Flight 

All day long the hoarse, wild cries of waterfowls 
had resounded along the shores of a lonely Canadian 
lake where the clans of wild geese were gathering. 

Summer and autumn had come and gone. The 
broods had been reared, and now the time had come 



ios 

when they must say good-by to the pleasant lake 
that had sheltered and fed them, and seek a warmer 
clime. 




A Battle Royal 



Many battles royal had taken place for the leader- 
ship of the flock. Aspiring ganders had fought 
upon the frozen sands like Spartans, giving buffet 
for buffet, and blow for blow. These had not been 



io6 

sham fights, but real contests of strength and ability 
to stand pounding. It seems almost incredible, but 
a blow from the wing of a wild goose will frequently 
break bones, and if it falls upon a man's head it will 
usually stun him. 

There had been eight or ten broods of geese reared 
this year at the little lake, and usually they would 
have gone off quite peacefully in two or three flocks, 
but this year it was different. Something told them 
that there was hard weather ahead. Winds and 
storm must be met, and wise and wary leaders must 
be chosen. So the older and wiser ones clamored 
for a large flock, led by the most experienced gander 
in the region. 

Small squads of two or three geese had been rest- 
lessly flying to and fro all day long, apparently 
arranging matters, and trying to conciliate the many 
warring factions. Occasionally a solitary discom- 
fited gander winged by; he had been defeated in the 
tournament and would have none of them. 

When twilight came the sun set in a hazy west, 
gray clouds scudded across the sky, and the night 
looked threatening. Then the wild cries along the 
coves and inlets of the lonely lake increased tenfold, 
and the several broods rose in air, each commanded 
by the gander that had watched over it through the 
warm summer months. 



107 

Once or twice they circled about, then the larger 
flock headed southwards, soon resolving itself into 
the wedge-shaped form that has been compared to 
a harrow. Other flocks followed fast, lapping upon 
the ends of the two trailing sides. By the time that 
the lake in the wilderness could no longer be seen, 
the several broods had joined in one great flying 
wedge. Like an iceboat the flying V cleaved the 
high, clear air. While far down on the dun earth 
beneath their cry could just be heard, "Honk! 
honk! honk!" 

Higher and higher they mounted as they swept on, 
until they had reached the altitude of nearly a mile. 
The sky was overcast and the night would be very 
dark, so they must fly high and run no risks. 

The wind was blowing a fresh southeast gale that 
increased with every hour that passed. Down on 
the earth familiar objects floated back under them, 
and the whole visible world was a great kinetoscope, 
changing and shifting rapidly. Houses were like toy 
blocks, and teams were like insects crawling slowly 
upon their way. Broad rivers seen from this great 
height were like narrow, snakelike threads of silver, 
wriggling over the brown, sere earth. 

With the coming of dusk a fine, drifting, sifting snow 
began pelting the flying wedge. Caught in the folds 
of the strong southeaster and hurled at a velocity of 



io8 

fifty miles an hour, the geese were pelted with snow 
like sand, but they did not mind a little thing like that. 
They were also flying directly in the teeth of the gale, 
and its resistance against their broad breasts was 
very great, but their strong wings bore them steadily 
' on, at sixty or seventy miles an hour. They would 
have made ninety, if they had had no wind to face. 

At the very point of the majestic harrow was the 
tried leader of this long, perilous flight. He had 
piloted the flock southward for a score of years 
without mishap. Without a chart or compass, and 
with no visible object to guide him, this old mariner 
of the ether marked their course unerringly south 
southeast, and did not vary two points by the com- 
pass for hours. But with each hour that- passed the 
wind increased in velocity and the fall of snow be- 
came heavier. 

The pace of the flock had now fallen to fifty miles 
an hour, and the sticky snow had so driven into their 
down that they were snow white, and the edge of 
each wing was tipped with beads of ice. The snow 
would not have stuck to the geese so, had not the 
heat from their bodies melted it. It then froze 
and clung all the closer. 

We have all seen forest trees, with the strength 
of Hercules in their great branches, bend beneath a 
load of snow and ice. So the strong-winged geese 



were gradually weighted down by the sticking, freez- 
ing snow that drove into their feathers and froze to 
their wings. While they had been flying a mile high 
at twilight, at midnight they were flying barely a 
quarter of a mile high. 

When great storms sweep over our country and 
trains are reported hours late, one of the hardest 
obstacles that the driver of the iron horse has to 
overcome is the atmospheric pressure of the storm 
against his locomotive. So the flying V pushed hard 
against the southeaster, but the gale had more 
strength than the flock, which gradually became 
tired by its buffeting, and no longer flew with that 
strong, easy motion, but swayed with the gusts of the 
gale, like a tired thing with failing strength. 

The flock was now barely a score of rods above the 
snow-laden earth, and sinking lower and lower with 
each mile. Something told the geese that this was 
not well, but the heaviness on their wings w r as like 
the weight of sleep upon dream-laden eyelids, and 
they could not shake it off. 

Again and again their leader uttered warning 
cries, and by heroic efforts led the flock a few rods 
higher in its flight, but again it sank weighted down 
by snow and ice, and fatigued by the buffeting of the 
wind. The trailers were flying even lower than the 
rest, and suddenly a chimney pot loomed up in front 



I IO 



of a young gander. He struck blindly against it, 
breaking his neck. With a heavy thud he fell upon 
the roof, rolling into the yard, where the children 
found him next morning, and that family had baked 
goose for their Sunday dinner. But the rest of the 
flock swept on unmindful of the fate of their com- 
rade. A few miles further on this flying harrow 
collapsed utterly, and its members dropped down 
into a side street of a little Canadian village. 

It was early morning in the small hamlet of St. 
Regis; none of the villagers were yet astir, but a ten- 
year-old boy stirred uneasily in his sleep and opened 
his eyes. The cold gray light was stealing through 
his bedroom window, and he knew it was early 
morning. Usually he would have fallen quickly 
asleep again, but this morning thoughts of a new 
sled that had been promised him the week before, 
and for which he had cast his eyes about the bed- 
room every morning since, forestalled this second 
nap. He jumped out of bed with a shout, for there 
was the sled bright and shining as new paint could 
make it, with its name, Speedaway, and the boy's 
own name in gold letters upon it. 

His next thought was of snow, for the night before 
the earth had been bare and brown, and the frozen 
sod had rung like rock beneath his boot heels. 



I II 



He melted the frost upon the window with his 
breath and peered out. The ground was white 
with snow, and the gate posts were crowned with 
tall snow hats. Then he heard the harsh, discordant 
squawking of geese, a sound that they make when 




They Flapped the Snow 



disturbed in sleep or on waking in early morning. 
His father did not keep geese, although the neigh- 
bors did, and he wondered what it meant, for the 
sounds seemed to come from his own back yard. 
Then he was treated to a great surprise, and what 
he saw would have astonished even an older and 



112 



wiser mind than the boy's, for the snow in the back 
yard began heaving and tumbling about, and scores 
of wild geese wriggled out of what Lewis had thought 
a snowdrift a moment before. They flapped the 
snow in every direction, and made a great noise, 
squawking and calling. 

Lewis rubbed his eyes to make sure that he was 
not asleep, then looked at the geese again. They 
were still there, but were getting restless. He also 
noticed that over in the lot beyond the yard the snow 
was tumbling about, and more geese were emerging. 

Then the roar of a shotgun woke the morning 
stillness, and with a great noise the flock rose in air, 
filling the countryside with its cries. 

Three geese flopped about in the field near by, 
winged by the hunter's shot, but the rest flew swiftly 
away, leaving the boy open-eyed and open-mouthed 
with wonder. He raised the frost-bound window 
for one departing look to make sure that he was not 
dreaming. No, there was the wonderful harrow, 
sweeping through the gray morning sky like the 
wind, and the unmistakable cry of the wild geese 
floated back to his ears, clear and strong, "Honk! 
honk! honk!" 



H3 



David and Goliath 

The warm summer sun had shot its first broad 
band of light over the Green Mountain range and 
crowned the Equinox mountain with a coronet of 
burnished gold. The base and sides of this isolated 
peak were still wrapped in slumberous shadows, and 
only the tall trees on the mountain's brow had felt 
the touch of the day god's wand. 

But all the birds and wild creatures down in the 
valley had seen it, and were rejoicing in the ever 
new miracle of morning. Even those birds least 
gifted with song could not resist the enchantment, 
and the gay-liveried blue jay was calling, "Day, 
day,. day," as though there never would be another. 

The robin and the meadow lark were more melo- 
dious in their greeting, and they chirped and gurgled, 
"Morning, morning, morning." The bobolink 
heard them down in the meadow by the little brook, 
and straightway poured forth his song of joy. 

Half an hour before, a little herd of deer, consist- 
ing of a buck, a doe, and a pretty pair of twin fawns 
had wended their way with dainty hoofs down the 
mountain side, following a cow path to the old mill 
pond, where there was both food and drink. 

After the family had drunk long and deep of the 

TRAIL TO WOODS. — 8 



H4 

cool water, the doe waded in to her knees and began 
ravenously devouring the lily pads that fringed the 
shore. She was very thin, the double duty of giv- 
ing milk to two such sleek fawns as frolicked on the 
bank of the mill pond having told upon her. But 
their beauty and grace justified the sacrifice, even 
in the eyes of an impartial observer, and much more 
so in that of their wild mother. 

The buck, who had taken it upon himself to be 
custodian of the herd this morning, although he usu- 
ally ranged alone, had gone into an adjacent field 
to make a delicate meal on the heads of clover and 
herd's-grass. He was an epicurean in a rather 
dainty family, for a deer rarely eats clean, but nips 
away at the choicest parts, leaving the coarser por- 
tion for the less fastidious domestic animals. 

It was half an hour later and the sun was shining 
brightly down into the valley when the • domestic 
herd that usually frequented the pasture surround- 
ing the mill pond came forth from the barnyard, and 
started leisurely down the lane for the day's feeding 
ground. Even at this early hour the locust disturbed 
the morning symphony with his harsh note. It 
would be a warm day when the locust shrilled so 
early. So with the instinct of coming heat upon 
them, the cattle started for the mill pond, the great 
Durham bull leading the way. 



us 

Leadership among animals seems more pronounced 
than it is with man, although it is not so well sys- 
tematized or understood. Usually it is a male that 
determines the policy of the herd or flock. Where 
there is no male in the domestic herd the leader- 
ship falls to some cross, wrinkled-horned old cow, 
whose years and experience easily give her preced- 
ence. 

The great Durham bull looked every inch a leader 
as he marched along, his sleek mahogany sides shin- 
ing in the sunlight, and his broad shoulder and deep 
flank suggesting great weight. He was usually very 
good-natured for a bull, but on one or two occasions 
had shown a frightful temper. 

With their keener instincts that are always on the 
alert, the wild herd at the mill pond noticed the 
approach of the domestic creatures long before the 
latter discovered that their favorite feeding grounds 
were occupied. The buck with his usual vigilance 
noticed their approach first, and sprang back over 
the fence into the pasture, to see that no harm came 
to the doe and fawns, although he did not fear much 
from the cows. They often grazed together, but the 
bull he did not like the looks of, as he had not seen 
him in the pasture before. 

The great Durham also, as he approached, did 
not profess acquaintance with the slight stranger, but 



n6 

eyed him suspiciously, at the same time pawing the 
ground, and giving vent to a hoarse and ominous 
bellow, that said plainly, "What are you doing here, 
my fine fellow? Who gave you leave? We shall 
investigate." 

But the buck did not recede. He stood stat- 
uesque, his head up, his slight form contrasting 
strangely with that of the massive bull. His eyes 
were a little brighter, and his nostrils dilated slightly, 
but not a muscle moved. He looked every ounce of 
him ready to battle for his rights in the ancient fields 
which his kind frequented for centuries before cattle 
ever set foot on the soil. 

Again the great Durham bellowed, and the echo 
rolled away like distant thunder. The doe and 
fawns swam the pond at a shallow point and fled 
precipitately up the hillside. The buck still stood 
his ground, but now there was an ominous glitter 
in his eye, and his muscles grew tense. 

It was history repeating itself, David and Goliath 
had come out to fight for their respective peoples, but 
this battle would be even more unequal, as the buck 
would probably flee at the first onset. 

The bull lowered his head and bellowed again, 
the sound dying away in a shriek of rage. With 
his powerful hoof, he sent up showers of dirt that 
partially enveloped him, but his eyes burned through 



ii7 

the dust cloud like veritable stars of war. Yet the 
buck still viewed him with disdain. 

Then with a roar that even startled his own herd, 
he launched his great hulk full at his slight adver- 
sary; but the buck stood as though made of marble. 
On rushed this avalanche of bone and muscle, while 
the slight object of its fury stood as though rooted 
to the ground. Was it fear that held him, was all 
power of motion paralyzed by the sight of this 
monster? One more jump and the great horns 
would be planted fairly in his side. Then the steel- 
like muscles of the buck gathered slightly, and with 
a motion light as air and as quick as the spring of a 
bow, he jumped aside and his adversary passed by. 
But see the buck's second move; he whirls like a 
flash as the bull passes, his forward hoof descends, 
laying open a gash six inches in length in the bull's 
side, even down to the bare bone. 

The fury of the bull's charge carried him several 
yards past his adversary. But when with a roar of 
pain he wheels to front his enemy again, the buck 
stands as before, his eyes glittering and his nostrils 
extended with the scent of battle. 

Again Goliath charges, and David waits for the 
oncoming of the giant. Once again that lightning 
spring carries the slight buck out of the bull's 
reach. Again the buck wheels, and his terrible hoof 



n8 

descends, and this time he crushes a rib of his 
enemy, and the bull groans at the sharp stab. 

Foam drips from the infuriated monster's lips, 
and blood streams from his side. Beads of sweat 
stand on his flanks, and his eyes are blood red, his 
fury blinds him, and he charges recklessly, again and 




The Fight 

again, but at each charge his enemy slips as though 
by magic from his reach, and that sharp hoof plows 
a furrow in his side. Three ribs are broken, and 
his side fairly streams with blood. He roars and 
pants, his great nostrils dilating as though they 
would burst. 



ii 9 

But his adversary still stands as erect and un- 
daunted as at the first charge. David's stones are 
hitting their mark, and Goliath is weakening. But 
the fury that has made his kind the sport of the 
matadore and the toreador since the days of the 
Alhambra will not let the bull rest, and he charges 
again. This time the hoof cuts deeper than ever, 
and the bone is laid bare just behind his shoulder, 
while the blood spurts from a severed vein. He 
is being worsted; blinded by his fury, and weakened 
by loss of blood, he stands head down, uncertain, 
roaring with pain and anger, while his jaunty enemy 
views him disdainfully. At this point in the com- 
bat the cows flee to the barn, bellowing with fright, 
and at the same time men and dogs come running 
across the fields. Then David lightly jumps the 
fence and disappears up the hillside, leaving Goliath 
to limp painfully back to the barn, his spirit broken 
forever. 

August in the Pasture Lands 

When the freckled-faced, bare-legged boy swings 
a six-quart tin pail upon his arm and starts to the 
pasture lands for blackberries the tide of summer- 
time is at its height. It was for the fullness and rich- 
ness of such days as these that seeds sprouted and 



120 



buds opened in springtime. For such dulcet days 
the winds were tempered and the warm rains fell 
and sunlight awoke the slumberous life in embryo 
and plant. 

The bare-legged urchin is not quite so bare-legged 
to-day as usual, for he has pulled down his trousers, 
and put on an old pair of shoes as protection against 
the thistles and thorns that lie in ambush for a 
small boy's bare feet. 

Perhaps he is swinging the tin pail about his head 
by way of diversion, or maybe it is upside down, 
and he is beating a lively tattoo on it, while he 
whistles " Marching through Georgia," in imitation 
of fife and drum. It is safe to say that he is ready 
for some antic, for his blood is so joyous that it needs 
must find expression. In his exuberance he frisks 
and frolics like a young lamb as he goes. 

The sunlight has a yellow cast that it did not have 
in July, but occasional puffs of air that come from 
the deep woods are sweet with thoughts of Septem- 
ber. It is one of those days when Nature seems 
uncertain whether to roll back to July or to sweep 
on to September. 

There is that old familiar jangle of the cow bell 
fitting in so nicely with one's thoughts as one climbs 
the bars. It is more sonorous than the silver tinkle 
from the sheepfold, but quite as pleasant. 



121 



What country scene is more suggestive of peace, 
plenty, and quiet content than that of a herd of cows 
or a flock of sheep quietly grazing ? There is no 
hurry or worry in the life of these flocks and herds. 
Their mood is contemplative and ruminating. 
Frequently they pause, with a tempting bunch of 
grass half eaten, to gaze abstractedly across the fields. 
There is no hurry, no dissatisfaction. 

Although these scenes are so familiar to the 
country boy he never tires of them. His eye wan- 
ders over the sleek herd, and anything uncommon in 
any of the cattle is immediately noticed by him. 

In the distance he can see the dark plumes of 
pine and hemlock softy outlined against the lighter 
greens of maple and beech in the woods beyond. 
This is where the blackberries are most plentiful. 
They love the sheltered nooks just under the woods, 
where the first warm sunbeams find them in May 
and the chill winds do not blow. There is a 
pleasant odor of balsam from the firs to-day, and 
it gives a spiciness to the sweet-scented air. 

" If blackberries only grew upon briers without 
thorns," is the boy's mental comment as he begins 
rattling the luscious fruit into his pail. 

At first he falls to work with a will. It is fun to 
feel the pail grow heavy with the weight of the 
berries. Each ring or scratch on the pail is a 



123 

measure mark, and the boy can tell you to a gill, at 
any time, how many berries he has picked. By the 
time the three-quart mark is reached, however, the 
novelty has worn off, and the boy is ready for a 
diversion. He may find it in a hop toad, whose ways 
he will study. Or in a snake that he must kill, for 
the serpent's head never goes unbruised w T hen stone 
or club is at hand. He thinks it would be pleasant 
to flush a bevy of young partridge and see how 
many of the birds he could count. The broods are 
still together, and some of the late chicks are not 
more than half grown. 

There is also an old log where partridge berries 
grow, and a pleasant knoll where the checkerberries 
are thick. "A fellow can't be expected to pick all 
the time," he thinks to himself, "when there is so 
much doing as there is to-day." If he only had his 
knife, which is at home in the pocket of his other 
trousers, he would go into the woods for a few 
minutes and prospect for spruce gum. How a boy's 
knife always gets into that "other pocket" is a 
mystery. 

Presently he looks up and sees a great hawk 
hovering in midair, giving just enough motion to 
his wings to keep his balance. Flash! zip! Down he 
comes like a toboggan. Now, small creatures, look 
out, for Redtail is after you. The boy's eyes open 



124 

wide with astonishment when the hawk rises, dan- 
gling a large striped snake from his beak. He can 
see the snake writhe and twist, but it is of no use. 
His fate is sealed. 

The birds, as well as the boy, are taking advan- 
tage of this free feast that Nature has provided so 
bountifully, and a pair of pert robins scold away 
at the intruder, just as though they owned the pas- 
ture and had put up trespass signs. Sometimes 
they find overripe berries lying on the ground where 
they have fallen, or frequently they perch upon the 
bramble, and eat directly from the bush. 

The writer once owned a hunting dog who would 
stand up on his hind legs and rattle blackberries 
into his mouth, as a bear would pick blueberries. 
Occasionally when his paw hit a thorn, he would 
look quite quizzical, as much as to say, "Now, what 
does that mean? It certainly was not a wasp." 

In an old maple stub at the center of the pasture 
are tw r o families of flickers, or yellow-hammers, as 
the boy calls them. The tree has been pierced 
in a dozen places by this curious woodchopper, and 
one would judge from the holes that there was a 
whole colony. The boy likes to steal up to the 
tree and drum on the trunk with a stone, and then 
see the yellow-hammers come out and go flying 
across the pasture. This does not frighten the birds 




Young Nickers, trom Lite 



[125] 



126 

much, and it affords the boy considerable amuse- 
ment. This wide-eyed urchin knows all the wood- 
pecker family, the red-crested, the red-breasted, the 
yellow-bellied, and all the rest. 

By the aid of such diversions as these the after- 
noon wears away, and the berries in the pail near 
the top. He never could fill the pail if he did not 
stop occasionally, or so he thinks. There is a 
black ring around his mouth. He would say that 
he had not eaten more than one or two handfuls if 
you were to ask him. But I am afraid that quarts 
would be nearer the truth. This also he deems 
necessary to picking, for it continually reminds him 
what delicious fruit he is gathering, and causes him 
to renew his efforts. 

He can do very well when he is alone, and usually 
comes home with a full pail, but if Ned Fuller or 
Tom Hawley are along it makes all the difference 
in the world. It seems strange that three active 
boys cannot pick faster than one, but the truth is 
that three pairs of eyes see three times as many 
things to divert the mind, and three active brains 
devise more than three times the amount of sport 
that one does. 

It is not until the sun rests upon the tree tops of 
the western hills, and its golden gleams fall aslant 
among the pines at the edge of the woods, that the 



127 

boy turns his steps homeward. He will drive the 
cows along as he goes, — that will save another trip 
to the pasture. They do not need much driving, 
but jog soberly along before him. Their sides are 
swelled almost to bursting with feed, and in one or 
two cases their udders drip milk. 

What was that black streak across the stones 
where the cows ford the little brook? Perhaps it 
was a shadow. No, there it is again, but it goes 
so quickly you can scarcely make it out. There, 
now it has stopped. A slim snaky head is thrust 
out from behind a stone and moved from side to 
side, while bright eyes look furtively at the boy. It 
is a mink. The boy will remember and set a trap 
here in the fall. 

The swallows are skimming and darting over the 
pasture land, busy catching flies, and the grass is 
already quite wet with dew. It is the gentle hour 
of dewfall, when the breath of flower and leaf and 
woody shrub is distilled by the moisture, and a 
sweet incense arises. 

This is devotion indeed, when the incense of fern 
and flower rises from the altar of earth, and is borne 
by the winds into heaven. It is the reverse of the 
beautiful legend of Sandolphin, where the prayers 
of the righteous were translated by the angels into 
beautiful flowers. 



128 



"Whey, there, go 'long. Come out here, Shep, 
and help." The boy is getting in a hurry, for, not- 
withstanding the two quarts of blackberries he has 
eaten, he is as hungry as a bear. His mouth fairly 
waters as he thinks of his brimming bowl of bread 
and milk, black with the berries he has picked this 




A Mink, from Life 



Copyright by 

N. Y. Zoological Society 



afternoon. He will take it out on the doorstep where 
he can watch the night hawk and the bats and see 
the stars appear. 

There is something deliciously refreshing in this 
summer twilight, after the heat and glare of the day. 
It cools the blood in the boy's veins and makes his 
heart happy. By and by it will make him drowsy, 



129 

too, and he will say good-night to the wind, the 
stars, and the earth, and climb to his quiet chamber 
and sweet sleep. 

Famine in the Wilderness 

The great white blanket of snow fell early in the 
wilderness during the disastrous winter of 1903 and 
1904. As early as the week before Thanksgiving 
the first fall came, completely covering the seared 
grass and the heads of small fronds. The very 
next week it was followed by a much heavier fall of 
snow that hid the tall weeds and bowed down the 
laurel and the poison hemlock. 

This cold shroud for the tender plants and creep- 
ing things is really a kind provision of Nature, by 
which she shields the tender plants from the biting 
winter cold, for once well covered by the snow they 
are much warmer than they would be exposed to 
the winter blasts. If you will notice, it is not where 
the snow lies deep that vegetation is winterkilled, 
but where mischievous winds have blown away the 
snow and left the roots exposed to the bitter cold. 

So it was really a tender act of Nature to wrap 
her children in this white coverlet, and put them 
away for their long winter sleep. 

The provident squirrels had heard the wind whis- 



TRAIL TO WOODS.- 



130 

pering in the leafless branches that the winter was 
to be long and terrible, so they had laid in an extra 
supply of nuts, and had prepared for a good, quiet 
sleep. 

The muskrat too had been warned in some un- 
accountable way, and had made the walls of his 
house uncommonly thick. 

Deer and moose had yarded early, as indeed they 





J 



The Muskrat and His House 

had to, on account of the deep snow, and with 
some warning of coming famine had planned the 
yards as large as possible. A moose or deer yard 
is one of the most interesting chapters of wild life 
that the woodsman reads in the new snow. Early 
in the winter, when the snow is only a few inches 



131 

deep, the leader of each herd selects a large area of 
country containing yellow birch and other tempting 
browse and also deep thickets of firs which will act 
as a shelter from the biting winds of midwinter. It 
is also most important to include several living 
springs of water in the confines of this yard, which 
is really the winter quarters for the deer family. 
When the herd is large the yard may extend for 
miles, but usually it includes a few hundred acres. 
When the deep snows of winter fall, the deer and 
moose mark out certain main thoroughfares through 
this tract of country, with smaller arteries running 
in every direction. After each new snow the tracks 
must all be trodden down again and the highway to 
food and water be kept open. This custom of 
moose and deer for protecting themselves against 
•the snows of winter which hem them in and cut off 
much of their feeding ground, is called yarding. 

Ordinarily they could keep the snow beaten down 
in certain tracts of country, which they marked out, 
like a fox and geese track on a large scale, but this 
year the snow was dry and mushy, and although it 
was beaten and stamped by those powerful hoofs, it 
would not pack. In spite of all they could do, deer 
and moose could not keep the yard broken out 
ahead of the silent, sifting, drifting snow that fell 
day after day, gradually beating them back from the 



132 

outer confines of the yard into the main arteries. 
With each branch trail that was cut off a part of 
their browsing ground was lost. 

Saplings that could be bent to the ground were 
stripped of every twig, and the bark peeled on many 
of the smaller branches. Everything that could 
be reached, whether it was nourishing or not, was 
eaten, and still the snow fell and the cold strength- 
ened. Finally the laurel was completely covered, 
and little scrub spruces that had held their heads 
proudly and considered themselves quite important 
trees before the snow came were covered until their 
blue-green plumes barely showed. Larger pines and 
spruces were loaded down almost to breaking with 
the steadily falling snow. Whenever the wind stirred 
in the branches it rattled down a shower of snow, 
and the freed plumes of the fir sprang gladly back 
to their accustomed places. But they did not long 
remain there, for the feathery flakes soon bent them 
down again, until they groaned beneath their 
burden. 

After the sun turned at the winter solstice, and 
its rays fell more obliquely on the earth, the cold 
grew more intense and the white vistas of the wil- 
derness took on new terrors for the already hard- 
pressed wood folks. 

There was not a spark of warmth in the steely 



133 

glint of the sky on those ghastly nights, and the stars 
were as cold as the firmament in which they twinkled. 

Then many of the trees whose boughs were loaded 
to breaking with snow did a very strange thing, for 
they lifted their branches under their load until they 
presented the appearance of an umbrella that has 
been turned wrong side out. It seemed almost like 
a miracle to see the trees slowly lift their arms and 
raise the burden that had so weighted them down 
the day before. But this is the explanation. The 
intense cold contracts the bark on the limb, and as 
the bark is shorter on the upper side it contracts 
faster than the lower side, and so draws the limb 
up. I have never seen this phenomenon but once, 
and then the thermometer stood at twenty below 
zero at high noon with the sun shining. 

Some mornings, when the sky was overcast and it 
was too cold to snow, white crystals of frost would 
bespangle the tips of the birches, and the entire 
forest, including the trunks of the trees, would 
appear as though dressed in a gauzy garment. 

Finally, in the middle of February, the lowest 
record was reached, and the thermometer in many 
parts of the Maine wilderness touched fifty and 
sixty below zero. Then in the nighttime above the 
howling of the wind and the moaning of the forest 
a sharp crack would be heard like the report of a 



134 

rifle. It might not be apparent at the time what 
made the noise, but when spring came sap would 
be found trickling down the trunk of an occasional 
maple or birch, and a long seam would be discovered 
where the intense cold had cracked the solid wood. 
It is cold indeed when the strong heart of a tree is 
broken, so was it any wonder that many deer and 
moose perished of exposure and famine before the 
spring winds of 1904 awoke the arbutus? 

Joe Sharette was snowshoeing through the wilder- 
ness, going from Camp No. 3 of the Great Northern 
Lumber Company to a more isolated camp in the 
lake region. His only luggage was three days' pro- 
vision and a double-bitted ax. The snow was six 
feet deep on the level, and on the tops of many of 
the drifts he could walk among the lower branches 
of tall trees. Many of the drifts were probably 
twenty feet in depth. 

There were few tracks in the woods this winter, 
and that made it seem even more lonely and deserted 
than usual. For, to the eye of a woodsman, tracks 
are the index to the woods, telling him much of its 
life, and it is very pleasant as one travels through 
the snowbound forest to read them. 

Doubtless the forest folks had been abroad this 
winter, but the frequently falling snows had obliter- 
ated their footprints almost as soon as they were 



135 



made. Of course deer and moose could not stir 
abroad in such deep snow, but there was no reason 
why the rabbit and the broad-padded lynx should 
not be about. 




Joe Sharette 



Near noon of the second day of his tramp Joe 
came upon one of the arteries of a moose yard, and 
followed, thinking to unravel this usually blind 
trail, for as the snow was so deep he reasoned that 
the yard would be narrowed down considerably. 



136 

As he followed the trail and came upon others 
crossing and recrossing it, his confidence in his abil- 
ity to locate the moose was strengthened, for many 
of the trails were barely discernible and seemed 
to be abandoned altogether. If he could only 
strike one well-beaten track he felt quite sure that it 
would bring him to the quarry. 

About the middle of the afternoon, when he had 
snowshoed about two miles upon the trail, he struck 
a path that showed fresh moose signs, and he fol- 
lowed it eagerly. He had not gone a hundred yards 
farther when the tall, gaunt form of a bull moose 
loomed up fifty yards ahead of him. The moose was 
standing with his rump towards Joe, and even from 
that distance he looked very thin and wasted. His 
head was evidently down, for the antlers did not show. 

Joe had no gun with him, and his object in stalk- 
ing the moose had simply been to discover how they 
were wintering. So he crept forward as stealthily 
as an Indian. The wind was in his favor, and he 
would probably get a good look at the big fellow 
before he was discovered. With the hunter's instinct 
he kept a clump of small firs between him and the 
game, and thus got within about twenty-five yards 
of the moose. Then he peered out through the 
friendly plumes of a little pine, and what he saw 
made him draw a low whistle. 



137 

For there the big moose stood, with his head 
down, his homely muzzle buried in the snow nearly 
up to his eyes, and his broad antlers resting in the 
top of a little snow-bound spruce. He was as gaunt 
as though his great skeleton had been set up in a 
'museum and his hide thrown loosely over it. His 
legs were spread apart to steady him, and the fierce 
combativeness of his race had gone out of him. 
There he stood, weak and humble, tamed by the 
elements and gnawing hunger that had eaten away 
his fine courage until he was as gentle as a 
lamb. 

Joe had heard old hunters tell of like instances, 
but he had never seen anything of the kind himself. 
Cautiously he crept forward, hallooing as he went, 
and making sure that the animal's seeming lethargy 
was not merely a fit of abstraction. 

Once when Joe shouted at the top of his voice 
the broad -an tiered monarch raised his head and 
gazed sadly at him, but after a moment the moose 
concluded that the intruder was not worth his notice, 
and dropped his muzzle in the snow as before. 
Then Joe crept up to his side and put a hand on the 
great bull's flank, but he did not stir. Then he 
pulled his insignificant tail to see if there was really 
any spunk left in him, but the bull did not move. 
Then Joe went cautiously around to his head, and 



138 

touched his antlers with the handle of his ax. But 
the bull did not mind it. 

Although his own provision was low, the wood- 
chopper, moved by a strange lump in his throat, 
brought a piece of corn bread from his pack, and 
held it down to the moose, again poking his antlers 
with the ax-handle. 

At first the bull paid no attention to him, but, 
finally, being annoyed by his persistence, he slowly 
raised his head and looked straight at the wood- 
chopper with his dark, hunger-sunken, pleading 
eyes. 

Then Joe thrust the bread forward, and the long 
hanging upper lip of the moose reached for it. It 
was only a morsel for such a great starved brute, 
but it showed the intent of the stranger. 

Joe would like to have fed him all there was in 
the pack, but his own life would have been the 
penalty. After reaching the long upper lip towards 
his new-found friend several times, the moose again 
thrust his muzzle in the snow and stood motionless 
as before. 

The afternoon sun was gilding the distant tree 
tops, and blue shadows were stealing from behind 
the trunks of the trees. There were several miles 
yet to be covered before reaching camp, but Joe took 
the time to fell some small birches across the beaten 



139 




Joe Sharette Feeding the Moose 



140 

track in reach of the moose, in hopes that this browse 
would stay starvation until a crust should form over 
the snow so that the moose might find access to 
broader feeding grounds. 

A few yards farther on he came upon a cow moose 
standing head down under a spreading spruce, as 
her lord had been. An eight months' old calf was 
thrusting its muzzle into her flank and occasionally 
giving a hoarse, pathetic bleat. Near by was the 
carcass of a two year old, which had succumbed to 
starvation. 

About the fallen moose were broad -padded lynx 
tracks and the paw -print of a fox. The weasel, too, 
had been there with his blood-thirsty muzzle. 

Eleven moose, in all, Joe counted in the yard, 
five dead and six but shadows of their former mus- 
cular, sinewy selves. 

Like the big bull, each had lost his fear of man 
in that greater fear of starvation. All looked at Joe 
with the same hollow, sorrow-haunted eyes. 

When the purple shadows on the snow grew 
somber, and what little warmth the sun had pos- 
sessed had gone out of it, Joe left the famine-haunted 
moose yard behind and struck across country for 
camp. 

When the warm May winds blew fresh down the 
aisles of the ancient forest, and Mother Earth had for- 



141 

gotten the terrible winter through which she had 
just passed in the glad thought of the young spring, 
Joe trailed the wilderness again, and came to the 
spot where he had found the starving moose. He 
could tell the place by the birches that he had felled 
into their yard, but even he had not thought that 
some of these saplings would dangle from stumps 
ten feet high when the snow melted. 

With his forester's instinct he was able to mark 
down all the familiar objects that he had noticed 
that day. He even found the spruce under which 
he had seen the cow moose and her bleating 
calf. 

The skeleton of the two year old. was still there, 
and that of the calf near by, but the old cow had 
probably weathered the winter, for her bones were 
not visible. Eight skeletons Joe was able to locate, 
and as he scoured the forest for a quarter of a mile 
in the vicinity he concluded that the other three 
moose, including the big bull, had escaped the 
clutches of starvation. 

If it had been the birches he had thrown in their 
way that had saved them, Joe was glad; for the 
pathos of those hollow, hungry eyes, asking him 
dumbly what it all meant, Joe has never been able 
quite to forget. 



142 

The Prize of the Creel 

Just above the picturesque meadow city, where 
the noble Connecticut makes its longest loop be- 
tween Bellows Falls and the Sound, is situated the 
quaint old town, known to the Indians as Norwot- 
tuck, " the town in the midst of the river." Its 
English name also is pleasant to the ear, but it is not 
so fitting as that given it by the Indians, so we will 
call it Norw r ottuck. The Connecticut River here 
makes the bend technically known as an oxbow. 
One end of the main street rests upon the river at 
the north, just where it turns to make the first 
U-shaped curve of the bow, while the other end of 
the street rests upon the river at the south, where the 
other curve is made completing the bow. From one 
end of the street to the other, or from one part of 
the river to the other is a good English mile, w T hile 
by boat around the oxbow is seven miles. 

I know of no other spot on the Connecticut where 
this grand river can have such a ruse played upon it 
by the canoeist as here. For one has merely to set 
his canoe upon wheels, or take it upon his head for 
that matter, and push it into the river at the upper 
end of the street, and, without rowing a stroke, he 
can float around the bow seven miles and take his 
boat out of the water within half a mile of home. 



143 

The current most of the way is swift, and by 
occasionally dipping a paddle into the water and 
pushing the boat back into the current, the trick is 
done, the current being swift enough to keep a spoon 
bait purling nicely all the w r ay. 

I know of no pleasanter occupation for a fresh 
summer morning than floating down the Connecticut 
in a canoe. The entire river from Bellows Falls to 
Saybrook is a perfect poem. Most of the way green 
meadows filled with growing corn and tobacco line 
the river, w r hile the hills stand back at a respectful 
distance of three or four miles. But just below Nor- 
wottuck the twin mountains are very inquisitive, and 
have come close up to the river, partly to do homage 
to it, but, I am afraid, more to view their ow r n gran- 
deur in its mirror. 

Geologists tell us that in the glacial or drift period 
this region was a vast lake, w 7 hich finally broke through 
between the mountains and made its way to the sea. 

On the particular morning that I have in mind, 
there was little wind and the sun was not too bright, 
tw r o signs that make the heart of a fisherman glad. 

As I pushed the boat into the river at the upper 
end of the street, an osprey came sailing majestically 
by, giving me his cheerful fisherman's greeting. For 
he, too, is a fisherman and wishes all the fraternity 
good luck. 



144 



Once well out in the river I let out about eighty 
feet of trolling line, carrying a spoon bait, and also 
rigged up a rod with which to work nearer the boat. 
The trolling line one can hold in his teeth and still 
feel a strike. 

It did not matter, though, whether the fish bit 
or not, for the gentle motion of the boat, the soft lap- 
ping of the water, and the bird song that floated 
from the bushes that lined the shore made one al- 




Picke 



most forget for the first half hour that there were 
such things as pickerel, bass, and muskellunge in 
the river. 

Occasionally a little willow-hidden brook slipped 
gleefully into the great river, laughing as it came. 
At such points the bass like to feed, and lave them- 
selves in the fresh brook water. 

The banks of a river are always interesting and 
forever changing. Here there is a little bush-fringed 
cove, where the pads are luxuriant and the pickerel 



145 

like to lie. Further along there will be other coves, 
some fringed with sweet flag and others girdled with 
cat-tails. Then there are innumerable little eddies 
giving strange effects of light and shade, and run- 
ning water flashing over colored stone. 

There is no more marvelous kaleidoscope in Nature 
than the banks of a river. 

Whir-r-r-zip, splash! I had forgotten I was fish- 
ing. It is only a little pickerel that has taken the 
spoon on my rod and has run under the boat. Here 
he comes! Whir-r-r, splash, splash, flop, flop. Now 
he is in the boat. What a sharky-looking chap he 
is, with his long, flattened head and slim body! But 
he is much sweeter meat than the larger pickerel, 
and his tug on the spoon gives one a good thrill. 

"See me, — see me, — sir-r-r." Here comes the 
osprey again, cheerful fisherman that he is. "Hello, 
old frog, down in your tub/' he is saying, "what 
luck are you having? See me, — see me, — sir." 

For a second he steadies himself, giving just 
motion enough to his wings to keep his balance, 
while he measures the distance and the depth of the 
water with his eye. Then down he comes, like a 
boy coasting on a steep hill. Away under he goes, 
till not a feather is seen, but it is only for a second, 
for here he comes again, throwing spray from his 
wings, and gleaming with water. 

TRAIL TO WOODS. 10 



146 

"Well done, old fellow, good fisherman." There 
is a pound sucker in his claws, and he flies away 
with it to a pine grove, where I imagine there is a 
nest. 

It takes a good eye to calculate so high up in the 




The Osprey Fishing 

air the position of the fish deep down in the water. 
But the members of the osprey family are trained 
fishermen, as the suckers and river dace and some- 
times a pickerel can testify. 

Thus the moments go, the boat dances on the 
water, and the little waves splash against the lily 



147 

pads, or gently lap the pebbly beach. From down 
in the meadow comes a blithe good morning from a 
dozen happy throats. My old friend bobolink is 
there, and the cheerful robin is keeping him com- 
pany. Now a meadow lark rises from the grass, 
pouring out a sweet note at every stroke of his 
wings. Song sparrow, too, is there, and he vies 
with bobolink in liquid sweetness. 

All is hope, joy, and peace. There is no harsh 
sound of hammer or grinding machinery or shriek 
of w T histles, no indication that afar is the busy, 
bustling city. 

Perhaps the fish are biting, but it does not matter 
if they are not, for the air, the scintillating sunlight, 
and the blue heavens are joy enough in themselves, 
and if the fish happen to bite so much the better. 
Besides, the fisherman's talisman is hope: if the fish 
do not bite to-day they will to-morrow. If he does 
not get a fish all day long, he still expects to land a 
big one, who will take his hook just as he winds up 
the line and untackles. Not until the line is all in 
does he cease to hope. If a man could put the hope 
he feels in fishing into all the concerns of life, he 
would never despair. 

Willow Island, just above the three bridges, two 
thirds of the way round the oxbow, is reached, and 
the little pickerel in the bottom of the boat is the 



148 

only catch. But how could one be disappointed 
when the sky is so blue and the air so sweet ? 

Besides, if one had to stop to take off fish, he 
might lose some little whim of Nature that would be 
worth a whole basketful of shining pickerel. 

The boat rushes into the swift current and rounds 
the island, the spoons following dutifully, the one 
upon the rod quite near shore. 

What is that sudden tug at the spoon, that elec- 
tric thrill along the pole, that sudden start of the 
whole tackle ? Instinctively the hand grips the rod, 
the muscles in the arm tighten, and the right hand 
goes to the reel. The trolling line goes overboard, 
the paddle is dropped in the bottom of the boat, but 
the precious rod that has suddenly become electrified 
is held tight at any cost. Then the line goes dowoi 
stream singing like a bullet, while the reel fairly 
whistles trying to pay out the line fast enough. 

Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty feet, are gone, there are 
only twenty more. This fish will have to be snubbed 
if he does not turn in another second. The rod is 
raised, with the tip pointing in the opposite direc- 
tion from that in which the fish is going. The strain 
will be terrible, and must be gradually and evenly 
distributed along the entire length of the rod. 
But, just as the last coil on the reel is reached, the 
great fish turns and heads straight for the boat. 



149 

Now quick with the reel, or there will be a fine snarl 
and the fish will be lost. How the line sings and 
the reel clicks as you work frantically at it! 

The line is water-soaked and swollen, and there is 
no time to wind it even, but I succeed in getting fifty 
feet of it back on the reel, and the fish has the other 
fifty to take with him under the boat. But he does 
not stop to sulk this time. It is too early in the game. 
He is out the other side of the boat, and running 
straight across the channel. Now quick work or we 
shall lose him. The tip of the rod touches the water 
as it is dipped to let the line pass under the end of 
the boat and out the other side. A second later, and 
the line would have been drawn squarely across the 
boat and would have snapped like a bit of twine. 

Now the fish is sulking in ten feet of water. The 
three rushes have taken his wind, and the spoon 
does not help his breathing. Wind up the slack 
line and be ready for him, for he will be up and 
doing in a minute. 

Whirr, whew-w-w, there he goes straight for an 
old log. He must be turned this time at any cost. 

Faster and faster the line pays out, until he is 
within ten feet of the log. The rod is held high in 
air, with the butt towards the fish. Then the tip 
makes a beautiful curve and comes down to the 
butt, to see how that sturdy section likes such treat- 



150 

ment, while eighty feet of line jump clean out of 
the water, dripping spray the entire length. Then 
the line gives and floats slack on the current. The 
fish has been turned and is coming back. But slowly 
this time, for the big tug took all his strength, and 
he is waiting for his second wind. 

He thinks he will stop a while in the shade of the 
boat, for the line does not pull so there. He would 
sever this bit of cord in a flash if he only had a chance, 
but it always gives at just the wrong time. 

Five minutes he sulks, and then goes down stream 
like a cup defender on the home run. 

This time he almost reaches one of the piers of 
the bridge and has to be turned as before. The rod 
bends gracefully but does not quite return to its 
former position. It does not like too much bend- 
ing in one day, but it will get straightened out by to- 
morrow. Here he is again under the boat, back 
sooner than before. His destiny seems to be con- 
nected with the boat, but there is still fight in him. 

Then he tries a new trick, for suddenly he jumps a 
couple of feet out of water and comes down squarely 
across the line. Quick with the slack, for if the 
line is tight now he will pull the hook from his mouth. 
This is the first glimpse I have had of him, and it 
nerves my arm afresh. 

Again the relentless line is reeled in and gently 



i5i 

tightened. The fish gives a bit and is being 
worked towards the boat. Three times more he 
breaks away for a run down stream, but finally 
comes alongside and lies within a yard of the boat. 

Oh, for a net or a gaff, or something with which 
to land him! The hook will tear out if he is lifted 
into the boat by that alone. 

But he has solved the problem for me himself, 
for he gasps, flops, and then turns his w r hite belly 
up to the sunlight. It is quite easy now to get one 
hand in his gill and to haul him aboard, where he 
lies flopping and gasping, until a blow from the 
paddle quiets him. That is the best way for the fish, 
and for you, too. 

His weight was only nine pounds, but that meant 
a good fish to land on an eight-ounce rod and a line 
warranted to hold thirty-four pounds dead weight, 
and he was easily the prize of the creel for that 
summer. 

A Feline Fury 

It was the last of March, but one would have said 
from the dreariness of the landscape and the bois- 
terousness of the wind that it was midwinter. 

The week before, spring had promised us arbutus 
in its warm breath, but with one of those sudden 



152 

caprices of Nature that have made New England 
weather famous, old Boreas had swept out of the 
icy north, and the timid legions of springtime had 
gone helter-skelter back to Virginia, where they had 
pitched camp, and decided to stay for another week 
before resuming the march northward. 

Si Perkins, his dog Nipper, and the old shotgun 
were on their way to the woods this cheerless after- 
noon, and their destination was the laurel swamp. 
At least, that was the destination of the boy and 
dog; the old gun went wherever it was carried. 

Si was fifteen years old, Nipper was two, and the 
gun was probably fifty. But it was a gun, and that 
was enough for Si. 

Nipper was a full-blooded white bulldog, with a 
drooping lower lip and bloodshot eyes. He looked 
the very incarnation of moroseness, though really 
with his friends he was a very good-natured fellow, 
but his friends were few and far between. Not that 
he was disliked, for many sought his friendship whom 
he found wanting. The truth was that Nipper was 
exclusive, an aristocrat among dogs, and not easily 
approached. 

He had two passions. One was fighting, and the 
other was hunting rabbits. This latter achieve- 
ment was considered quite remarkable by all who 
knew Nipper, as there is not one bulldog in fifty 



153 

that has nose enough to follow a track, and even 
that fiftieth one probably would not have the desire. 
But Nipper had both the desire and the nose. 

He did not bark regularly, like a hound, but gave 
a queer little squeak every rod or two, half whine 
and half yelp. But there was no hound in the 
neighborhood that could bring in as many rabbits 
as Nipper could, and no one knew quite how he 
did it. 

As soon as the woods were in sight Nipper struck 
into the swamp, while his master went around on 
higher ground where it was better walking, intend- 
ing to penetrate the swamp further on in the woods, 
but fate had not decreed that he should hunt rabbits 
at all that afternoon. 

Si was trudging along with the heavy old gun 
slung in the hollow of his arm, occasionally stopping 
to listen for Nipper's peculiar whine, when he was 
brought up short in his tracks by a savage snarl in 
the bushes just ahead of him. 

Filled with astonishment, and also a bit fearful, 
he swung the old shotgun to his shoulder, and took 
two or three steps in the direction from which the 
snarl had come. It had sounded like a cat, and he 
did not think it could be a larger animal. 

A little scrub spruce stood between him and the 
growling stranger. Si stepped to one side of it and 



154 

got a good glimpse of an old log, one end of which 
had been hidden by the spruce tree. There, on the 
further end of the log, he saw an object that made 
the gun very unsteady in his hands and also made 
him long fervently for Nipper. 




The Wildcat Springing 



Crouched on the log, about twenty feet from him, 
was a catlike creature a little larger than Nipper. 
It had a snarling visage bristling with whiskers 
and dotted with two glaring, yellowish-green eyes, 
while in its two powerful paws it held a partridge 
which it was eating. 



155 

Instinctively the old gun went up, but Si did not 
know whether it was loaded with bird shot or 
something larger. It would be dangerous to trifle 
with such a customer as this. But in the second 
or two that he hesitated the cat decided for both 
of them, for, crouching low upon the log, it suddenly 
hurled itself like a stone from a catapult, directly 
at the boy's head. Its back was slightly arched, 
and its legs were held stiff, and not drawn up as a 
domestic cat's would have been. Si noticed this 
much, but he did not wait to take further notes. For 
a second the sight gleamed between the eyes in the 
whisker-fringed face, and then he pulled the trigger. 

The gun had been loaded for some time, and the 
recoil was terrific. As Si was a little off his guard, 
the old gun kicked and knocked him down in the 
snow in a manner that bewildered him for a mo- 
ment. But when he arose and took a hurried in- 
ventory of himself and his surroundings, a beast, 
the size of which made his nerves tingle, was lying 
dead at his feet. 

He poked the animal with the muzzle of the gun, 
standing ready to use it as a club, but the wildcat 
was quite dead. 

At the sound of the gun Nipper came running to 
his young master and sniffed the strange beast 
gingerly. He poked it with his nose and growled, 



i 5 6 



but since he could not get it to fight he soon gave 
up and went in search of a rabbit track. 

But there was no rabbit hunting for Si that day, 
for with as much exultation as a young savage prob- 
ably feels on taking his first scalp, he shouldered the 
great cat and started for home. He had to stop to 




A Wildcat, from Life 



Copyright.. IQ05, by 

N. Y. Zoological Society 



rest several times on the way, but finally reached 
home, breathless and excited. 

The kill was at once recognized by Si's father as a 
large wildcat, and Si was the proudest boy in town. 
The cat measured thirty-five inches from tip to 
tip, of which six was tail. Its weight was thirty- 
two pounds, and its strong white claws, when bared, 



157 

were something to admire and not to wish for a 
close acquaintance with. 

Its coat was a yellowish gray, almost tawny, 
with long, dark stripes down the back and fainter 
ones on the sides and limbs. Underneath, near 
the skin, its coat was soft and thick, but on the 
outside the hair was longer and coarser and tipped 
with black. Its tail was ringed with black and 
had a black tip. 

The following day Si took the big cat to the county 
seat and got five dollars' bounty on its scalp and 
was also offered five more for the pelt, but he would 
not part with that trophy. 

Late in the afternoon Si went to the old log again, 
but this time he kept Nipper at heel. The dog 
sniffed excitedly about the log, and soon discovered 
an opening at one end which the boy had overlooked. 
With his usual fearlessness Nipper plunged into the 
cavity, whining and yelping. A moment later Si 
heard a piteous, catlike cry from the interior of 
the log and the sound of Nipper's jaws crunching 
something. 

" Nipper, Nipper, come out here," called the boy, 
but Nipper was quite well satisfied where he was, and 
continued his fun inside. Finally, by dint of coax- 
ing and threats, Nipper appeared, bringing a chunky, 
bobtailed kitten in his jaws. This he laid down at 



i 5 8 

his master's feet, as much as to say, "This is your 
share of the plunder. I have finished the rest." 

Si wrapped the little cat in his muffler and at once 
started for the house, not daring to trust himself 
near the log longer, and feeling sure that Nipper 
had killed the rest of the kittens. 

The kitten had just got its eyes open, and was 
probably about two weeks old, but it was nearly 
twice the size of a domestic kitten. 

Luckily for the little stranger, a family of kittens 
had made its appearance at the house a couple of 
weeks before. So, after it was dark, Si put the 
wild kitten into the box with the rest, feeling sure that 
the old cat would take care of it along with her own 
offspring. 

At first she was inclined to cuff and spit at the 
intruder, but seeing how ravenous it was, her ma- 
ternal instinct got the better of her, and the little bob 
cat was allowed its supper. 

Besides being much larger than the domestic 
kittens, which were about its own age, as near as Si 
could judge, the wildcat had several other distinguish- 
ing marks. Its short, thick tail, which did not taper 
like the others; its large feet, with broad black pads; 
its white claws, and thick, square-topped ears, all 
proclaimed it to be another breed of cat. A great 
difference was also noticeable in its forearms, which 



iS9 

were strong, sinewy, and compact, and really abnor- 
mal in size for a cat. Nature had evidently devel- 
oped these forearms for striking terrific blows, and 
each generation of wildcats had added a little to their 
brawn. The head was also more blocky and brutal 
than that of the domestic cat, giving it a ferocious 
and determined look. 

The kitten early showed signs of its w r ild nature, 
and soon gained the nickname of " Scrapper." 
When it was three months old it had driven all the 
rest of the cats from the box in which they slept, and 
even its foster mother was half afraid of it. It 
would sit upon its stub of a tail, with its back against 
one corner of the box, thus protected from behind, 
and glare around with its wild, yellowish eyes, dar- 
ing anyone to do battle with it. 

Nipper early took a dislike to the bob cat, and it 
was only by the greatest care that Si prevented him 
from killing the little fury. He always looked sul- 
lenly out of one corner of his eye when he passed it, 
and, if no one was near, the cat had to take refuge 
on a beam overhead in order to escape the dog's 
attack. 

It grew half domestic during the first summer, 
but still retained many of its wild characteristics. 
It was now twice the size of the domestic cats ? 
weighing in the autumn about twelve pounds. 



i6o 



It did not like to be handled, but it would sit upon 
your knee if you did not touch it. Its purr was 
unlike that of the domestic cat, with a queer staccato 
note in it broken up into quarter notes with a quarter 
rest between each. 

The gait of this wildcat was also peculiar. It did 
not jump just like a rabbit, or trot like a domestic 
cat, but it would give a series of hump-backed, stiff- 
legged springs, bringing down all four of its paws in 
nearly the same spot. Its broad pads left a large 
track for so small an animal. It had no medium 
gait, and either jumped or walked. 

Even during the first winter it showed evidences 
of returning to its wild state, for it went to the woods 
several times, and once was gone for nearly a week. 
But one wild night when the wind fairly shrieked, 
and the storm beat furiously against the window, 
the family heard a strange, wild cry, like a piteous 
cat call, only more guttural, and there was the Scrap- 
per at the window, who had come back for a dish of 
milk and a chance to doze by the fireside. 

With the very first suggestion of spring it took 
to the woods, and never visited the premises after 
that except during extreme weather in the winter. 
It was often seen in the woods near the house, 
and was shot at several times by boys in the neigh- 
borhood, and although Si had several chances to 



i6i 



shoot it, he always remembered the bit of a bob- 
tailed kitten, and never could quite press the trigger, 
although he knew there was a five-dollar bounty 
awaiting him at the county treasurer's office, if he 
brought in the pelt. 

But the second autumn something did happen 
that made Si change his mind about the cat. 

It was about the first of October, and Si and 
Nipper had had several famous coon hunts. Coons 
seemed to be very plentiful 
that fall, and Si and his dog 
had taken two the first night 
they went out and one the 
second. This made them all 
excitement and everything that 
Nipper treed seemed a coon for 
the time being. 

So one night when Nipper 
treed something in the orchard behind the house, 
and summoned his master from sleep with his queer, 
whining yelp, Si's only thought was of coons. 

He dressed hurriedly, and taking a lantern went to 
Nipper's assistance. 

He found him yelping excitedly at the foot of an 
old sweet- apple tree. Si at once started up the 
tree to shake the coon down. But as he began to 
shin up the trunk, Nipper caught him by the trouser 




A Coon 



TRAIL TO WOODS.- 



l62 



leg and tried to pull him back, at the same time 
whining and acting strangely. This was very queer 
in Nipper, for he usually urged his master on with 
impatient yelps. 

" What's the matter with you, Nipper?" asked 
the boy. "Let me go, let me go, I say!" but 
Nipper still held on and got a box on his head for his 
pains, and Si went up the tree without further hin- 
drance. 

At first he could see nothing of the coon, but 
finally located him a few feet above. At the instant 
Si started to shake the tree, the coon landed upon his 
back, with a snarl that made the boy's hair stand 
up, and began ripping open his coat with claws 
that tore through the strong garment as though it 
were made of paper. 

Si never knew how he got down from the tree. 
He had a faint remembrance of catching at a limb 
or two, and sliding down the trunk like a streak, with 
the ripping, spitting, snarling fury still on his back. 

The moment his feet struck the ground, with 
great presence of mind he threw himself on his stom- 
ach, and cried, "Take him, Nipper, take him, quick." 

Nipper never needed a second invitation of that 
kind, and Si's words were hardly out of his mouth 
when he heard the dog's jaws click. He had missed, 
but struck again. This time he caught the furious 



i6 3 

stranger in the shoulder, but the muscle turned under 
his teeth and he got only a mouthful of fur. Then 
there was a short scuffle, during which Nipper's 
jaws clicked several times, but his antagonist seemed 
to be quicker than he and eluded him. Finally the 
strange animal sprang upon the wall near by and 
fled to the woods, with Nipper in hot pursuit. 

Si picked himself up and put his hand upon his 
back, which smarted strangely. His coat, vest, 
and shirt were all ripped open and dripping w r et. 
He ran into the house and called his mother to 
dress his wounds. His back was a sorry-looking 
sight. There were scratches on it six inches long 
from which the blood flowed freely. 

If Nipper had been a few seconds later his master's 
back would have been ripped to shreds. 

After a few minutes Nipper came back from his 
pursuit, bristling and greatly excited. When Si 
held the lantern down to see if he had received any 
wounds, he saw that his muzzle was covered with 
cat hairs. 

"It's the Scrapper," groaned Si. "The next 
time I see him, if he doesn't get a charge of shot 
then I'm mistaken." 

When the first snows came Si and the bulldog 
went several times to the woods on purpose to hunt 
the cat. But Nipper usually switched off on rabbits. 



164 

Once he started the cat, but Si did not get a shot at 
him. He saw him several times at a distance, and 
got a good idea of what the cat would do if cornered 
in a fight. 

It seemed to anger Scrapper to the verge of madness 
to have the dog following him. He would sit upon 
his stump of a tail and beat the air with his forepaws, 
and howl and snarl like the feline fury that he was. 
Such howls of rage as he gave made Si's skin creep, 
and he wondered what would happen to Nipper if 
the infuriated cat should once turn upon him. But 
Nipper would have been glad to see him coming. 
None of this cat hunting was successful, though, and 
the winter came and went. 

One day late in March the dog went into the woods 
to run rabbits on his own account, his master being 
busy in the sugar camp. The dog hoped the boy 
would hear him running and get his gun and come out. 
He had often enticed him to the woods in this way. 

The dog trotted along in his sober manner, until 
he reached the old log where he and Si had found 
the kittens. There seemed to be a strange fascina- 
tion about this log for him. He sniffed at the hole 
in which he had found the kittens he had killed, 
but there was nothing interesting there. Somehow 
his fate seemed to be strangely mixed up with this 
fallen tree. 



i65 



Then he heard a curious movement in a tree near 
by, and looked up. There, upon a limb of a beech, 
about six feet from the ground, was his enemy, 
with his back hunched and his countenance glaring 
as only an infuriated 
cat can glare. 

The cat was fully 
as heavy as the dog, 
and his muscles were 
like steel. . Nipper 
had found this out 
on the night he tus- 
sled with him at the 
foot of the apple 
tree. 

Many a hound of 
twice the white bull- 
dog's weight would 
have stuck his tail 
between his legs and 
slunk out of the 
woods, his counte- 
nance saying plainly 
that he was not looking for a cat fight ; but not so 
Nipper. 

He trotted over under the tree and glared up at his 
enemy, returning the cat's look of hatred with in- 




s 



% 



Nipper and Scrapper 



1 66 

terest. There was a spit and a snarl from the tree. 
Nipper answered it with a deep growl, at the same 
time partly rearing upon his hind legs and whining 
in his eagerness to get at his foe. 

Then the cat sprang, and Nipper settled upon his 
haunches to receive him. 

Nipper was bowled over like a ninepin, but he 
got the grip he wanted the first time he struck. 

His jaws closed fairly upon the cat's throat. He 
shut his eyes, and a heavenly smile overspread his 
homely dog countenance. This was the fight for 
which he had been born. It had been bred in the 
blood for generations. His sires had held on to the 
finish, and he would do so now. 

The great cat's forepaws flew like lightning across 
Nipper's back, while his hind ones tore away at the 
dog's belly. Nipper knew that his fine white satin 
coat was hanging in shreds upon his back, and that 
his vitals would soon be dangling upon the ground. 
But he only closed his jaws the tighter, and the smile 
upon his countenance grew even more benign. 

He could hear a strange gurgling and rattling in 
the cat's throat that filled him with joy and made 
his blood dance. He did not feel the pain of the 
terrible laceration he was receiving. He only knew 
that his teeth were sinking deeper and deeper in the 
cat's throat, and that the gurgling had nearly ceased. 



\6y 

Would he let go ? Never. Men had burned him 
with hot irons and clubbed him with sled stakes to 
break his hold upon their dogs, and only one thing 
had ever caused him to break his grip, and this was a 
pinch of yellow snuff blown into his nostrils. This 
would not happen to-day, and even when his body 
had grown cold his jaws would grip the cat's throat 
like a vice. 

Si found them there two days later, when he went 
to look for Nipper. The snow was crimsoned for 
yards around, and there were evidences of a des- 
perate struggle, but the bulldog's jaws were still 
frozen to the cat's throat, and both dog and cat were 
dead. 

"Poor old Nipper," sobbed the boy as he pried 
open the dog's jaws, and stroked his satin head, 
"you were game to the very end." 

Two Forest Hymns 

When I become world weary and the daily round 
of commonplace things no longer satisfies, I hitch a 
little bay mare, called Dolly, to an old carriage 
which I have previously laden with fishing tackle, 
blankets, and provisions, and go away to Three 
Lakes to be rejuvenated. The true lover of Nature 
can, at will, lay his heart to hers and literally be born 



i68 



again even as the embryos and buds are quickened 
into new life in the springtime. 

For the last three miles the way to Three Lakes 
leads through deep woods where the road is grown 




\V 





Blue Jay 



with grass part of the way, occasionally as high as the 
horse's knees. Here friendly bushes crowd close up 
to the carriage and sweep its top with soft fingers. 

Myriads of the shy little folk of the wood come 
scolding and twittering, protesting against this inva- 
sion of their domain. A squirrel barks at me angrily, 
and the jay, who is a natural spy, gives his note of 
alarm and flies away through the tree tops to tell all 
the rest of the birds that the curious biped called 
man is coming, sitting in an odd nest, while a 
strange animal draws him. 

The fence along which the red squirrel is fleeing 
with news of my coming goes directly by the cottage 



169 

and the lakes, so that the news of my approach will 
precede me. 

To most of us who keep our eyes open the forest 
is like a great book which we can read almost as 
easily as we can a printed page. Did you notice that 
"spring" in the maple limb just ahead? It means 
that a squirrel has jumped from it to another perch, 
from which he is watching us with curious eyes. 
What was that little quiver in the bush by the road- 
side ? It is a bird changing his position that he may 
see us better as we pass. 

Hello! there is a partridge feather in that sand 
bank. This must be the spot where Mr. and Mrs. 
Partridge take the morning dust bath to keep them- 
selves free of insects. 

Hark! What is that reverberating beating like 
the drummer's long roll ? It is cock partridge drum- 
ming upon the old log. A shy lady partridge may be 
watching him from beneath a bush near by, or perhaps 
the courting is over and she is sitting upon her eggs. 

What stirred the ferns by the fence ? A bird, did 
you say? No, birds do not stir things in that way. 
It is a rabbit. Don't you see him squatting by the 
fence ? He is just the color of the ground and looks 
as though he were having his picture taken in the 
old "don't move" style. He is as hard to see as 
the puzzle hidden in a labyrinth of queer shapes. 



170 



Do you see that glimmer in the trees ahead ? Thai; 
is the first of the three lakes, and the tall pine is just 

behind the cottage, by 
the boat landing. 

There is just time to 
get out on the middle 
lake before sundown 
and catch a few fish 
for breakfast. The 
channel between the 
tw r o lakes is barely 
wide enough to let the 
boat pass, and at one 
point you have to lie 
down as you glide 
under the limb of a 
tree. 

Above me is a soli- 




Blue Heron 



tary old blue heron, who has known the lakes even 
longer than I have, but the lakes are not his exclusive 
property, for he has to share them with the dipper 
duck and the kingfisher. 

If I have good luck, half an hour will give me fish 
enough for breakfast, and then I must hurry back 
to eat supper on the little porch at sunset. 

What is that rustle in the grass ? 

Why, Chippy, I had forgotten all about you. It 



i7i 



is my little chipmunk friend of last summer, who has 
come out of his hole to see his old friend. 

I'll snap him this bit of bread to see if he remem- 
bers me, for last summer he ate regularly with me. 
" Chipper, chip-chip." The morsel fell too near him 
and he has beaten a quick retreat to his hole, but he'll 
be back soon. Here he comes, turning his head this 
way and that inquir- 
ingly. Xow he is 
standing on his hind 
legs, looking at me 
and sniffing the air. 
He distrusts the 
man scent on the 
bread, but likes its 
looks and its own 
particular smell. 
Now he is rolling it 
over with his paw. chipmunk 

There it goes into his pouch. He looks now as 
though he had the mumps. Soon he is back with it 
to his hole. What a provident little chap! Here 
he comes again, the little beggar, standing on his 
hind legs and holding out his paw. Could he say, 
" What else have you got for me?" plainer than that? 

Who is this silver-gray, spotted fellow, that comes 
coursing through the sky on swift wings, crying, 




172 

"Beef, beef ?" He is the nighthawk, and a queer 
kind of hawk he is. Let us watch him. Down he 
comes so fast that the eye can scarcely follow him. 
No boy ever coasted down hill as this hawk is coast- 
ing down the mobile air on his strong wings. Hear 
that Who-o-o-o-o-o-o-p. That is his war whoop. 
Now he is up to his old height again, coursing along 
as before, calling u Beef, beef." Some unfortunate 
fly or miller is wriggling in his crop as a reward for the 

plunge he has just taken. 
He must have go'od eyes 
to see such small quarry 
thirty or forty rods away. 
The war whoop that you 

Nighthawk 1 i j_ n r 

heard was not really of 
his making, for it was merely the air rushing into his 
mouth when he opened it to swallow the fly or bug. 
Now the great golden disc of day is resting upon 
the western hills, like the world upon the shoulder of 
Atlas. Broad bands of golden sunlight fall aslant 
through the arches of the woods, making long strips 
of gold. This is the signal for the fortissimo passage 
in the vesper hymn, and wren and robin and song 
sparrow swell their breasts and pour forth a flood 
of melody. There are innumerable other little 
chirps and twitters too confused to be distinguish- 
able. Now half of the great golden disc has dis- 




173 



appeared behind the western hills. Mysterious little 
shadows are stealing from the underbrush and long 
shadow strips are alternated with the band of silver. 

Now the sun barely shows above the western hori- 
zon, only the tops of the trees are golden. The 
gray streaks of light 
in the aisles of 
the woods have van- 
ished and myriad 
shadows are danc- 
ing a weird minuet 
among the trunks of 
the trees. The ves- 
per hymn has reached 
the final pianissimo 
passage. 

I always sleep well 
at Three Lakes. All 
the sounds that come from these lonely lakes and 
the deep woods about me breathe quiet and repose. 

Whenever I awake I am sure to hear the wild, 
shrill song of my whip-poor-will up the road, and 
the deep booming bass of the old bullfrog, with the 
shrill strain of the piping frog. Occasionally a little 
bird will peep drowsily as he stirs in his nest or on 
some leafy limb. 

A little owl likes to perch in the maple tree by the 




Little Screech Ow] 



174 



r 



^WFt 



road and fill the night with his shrill trilling, which 
is more like the song of a tree toad than anything 
else I know. 

When that first white streak steals into the east 
at least half an hour before sunrise you will occa- 
sionally hear a startled twitter, as though some bird 
had wakened with the idea that he had overslept. 

A moment later you will 
hear the robin calling a 
few lusty notes, for he is 
a very thrifty fellow and 
is arousing the others. 
Then for fifteen minutes 
the woods are as still as 
though uninhabited by 
birds and squirrels, and 
you wonder what it means. 
Look out of the window 
and you will see. There 
in the roadway is cock 
robin hopping about looking for worms. So it is 
all through the woods and adjacent fields. It is 
breakfast time and the little foresters are too busy 
with the morning meal to sing or chatter. 

Away in the deep woods the partridge and the 
squirrel are scratching in the mold for last year's 
beechnuts or maple seeds that were too dry to 




\*mm 



Squirrel 



175 

sprout. There is also choice picking in an old log 
when it has become so decayed that it can be 
scratched to pieces like earth, for it is sure to be full 
of grubs and worms. A red squirrel can even make 
a comfortable breakfast on pine cones, if he is hungry, 
although, as a rule, he prefers something daintier. 

The white streak in the east has turned to burn- 
ished gold, and you hear an occasional exultant 
twitter or chirp, as though some songster were trying 
his voice, or the forest orchestra were tuning up 
before beginning the full chorus of the matin 
hymn. 

The golden streak grows broader and brighter, 
and robin wakes the forest with a few loud, clear 
notes, then the hermit thrush joins in, singing a rich 
alto to the robin's clear soprano; wren and song 
sparrow have a short duet together, while the others 
all listen. Then robin and thrush, song sparrow 
and wren, thrill the forest with a sweet quartet. 

Now the great golden orb of day bursts over the 
eastern hill, and every feathered thing in the forest 
that can sing or twitter welcomes him with an out- 
pouring of his very soul. Xo half-hearted singing 
this, but the "Praise-God" of the woods for the 
warmth and gladness, the beauty and fragrance. 
How the sound thrills and reverberates through the 
arches of the green woods! How it stirs the air to 



176 

new freshness! The squirrels, too, chirp and chatter 
as though they did not know their voices were not 
to be compared with the bird notes. 

Louder and louder swells the hymn of praise. 
Joy, joy, they all seem to be saying. God is good, 
the world is fair, the woods are sweet, and life is 
wonderful and beautiful. 

Now the sun is out over the hilltops in full sight. 
His warm beams flood the aisles of the woods. The 
leaves and the flowers glow and glisten beneath his 
touch and the very air vibrates with new life. 

The hymn of praise is at its height. This is the 
full organ of the forest and you may go up and down 
the world for a lifetime and you will not hear an- 
other such song as that of these little creatures 
welcoming the new day. 



MAR 2 1907 



I-IBRAR 



l° F CON G R Es 




^S04 62 l o 



